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THE LIFE 

OF 

JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 



COMPLETE IN TWO VOLUMES 
VOLUME I 



m 




(Ml 




John C. Calhoun as a Young Man 
Frontispiece t I ol. I 



THE LIFE 

OF 

JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 



BY 

WILLIAM M. MEIGS 

Author of "The Life of Thomas Hart Benton," 
"The Life of Charles Jared Ingersoll," "The 
Growth of the Constitution," and Other Works 



COMPLETE IN TWO VOLUMES 
VOLUME I 




THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

440 Fourth Avenue, New York 
1917 



CONTENTS 

VOLUME I 

CHAPTER I 

Preliminary page 

The Upper Country of South Carolina — Ancestry of John 
C. Calhoun 2 7 

CHAPTER II 

Early Years 

Boyhood — Schooling — Youthful Pursuits and Influences 
— Conditions, Social and Political, in South Carolina — 
Slavery 48 

CHAPTER III 

Education 

The Turning Point — Waddel's School — College Life at 
Yale — Impressions 62 

CHAPTER IV 

Further Training 

Studies Law — The Litchfield Law School — Growth of 
Opinion 7 2 

CHAPTER V 

Legal Career 

Completes Law Studies with Chancellor DeSaussure — 
Great Success at the Bar — Love and Marriage — Corre- 
spondence — Gives up the Law 88 

CHAPTER VI 

Entrance upon Public Affairs 

Legislature — Elected to House of Representatives — Per- 
sonal Glimpses 102 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VII 

War with England page 

The House of Representatives in 1811 — The "War- 
Hawks" — Committee on Foreign Relations — Declaration 
of War — 'The Restrictive System and its Final Abandon- 
ment 115 

CHAPTER VIII 

Activities in Congress 

Second Session of Twelfth Congress — The Thirteenth 
Congress — The Loan Bill — Bank of the United States Pro- 
posed — Death of Daughter 140 

CHAPTER IX 

The Fourteenth Congress 

Circumstances of the Day — The Tariff of 1816 — Second 
Bank Established — The Salary Bill — Internal Improve- 
ments — Calhoun's Early Views 174 

CHAPTER X 

In Monroe's Cabinet 

Secretary of War — Internal Improvements — Cabinet 
Discussions — Missouri Compromise — Party Politics — 
Rip-Rap Contract Investigation — Political Calumny — The 
Tariff — South Carolina Politics — Calhoun's Home . . . 225 

CHAPTER XI 

Adams and Calhoun 

Political Rivalry — The Presidential Election of 1824-25 
— The Washington Republican — Troubles in the Republican 
Camp — Calhoun's Loss of Pennsylvania — Withdraws from 
Candidacy — Elected Vice-President — John Randolph — 
" Patrick Henry " and " Onslow " 287 

CHAPTER XII 

The Growth of Sectional Hostility 

Calhoun's Change of View and Causes Leading Thereto — 
Champion of State Rights — The Missouri Struggle — Early 
Abolition Proposals — The Tariff 318 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XIII 

Adams's Administration page 

Further Causes Leading to Calhoun's Change — Ran- 
dolph's Influence — A Solid South — Calhoun's New Politi- 
cal Faith — The Woolens Bill — Tariff Act of 1828 — South- 
ern Outburst — South Carolina's Growing Isolation- 
Origin of Nullification— The " Exposition" 348 

CHAPTER XIV 

The Widening Breach 

Presidential Campaign of 1828-29 — Jackson-Calhoun 
Ticket Chosen — The President's Cabinet — Calhoun's 
Rivalry with Van Buren — The Eaton Affair — Growing 
Tension with Jackson — Crawford — Jackson's Quarrel with 
Calhoun 3^6 

CHAPTER XV 

The Drama of Nullification 

Defiance Discussed in South Carolina — Calhoun's Hesi- 
tations and Presidential Hopes — McDuffie's Speech of May 
19, 1831 — Calhoun Declares Himself — The Tariff Act of 
1832 — Letter to Governor Hamilton — The Nullification 
Convention — The Unionists — Elected to Senate — Death 
of Presidential Hopes 4 X 3 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

VOLUME I 
John C. Calhoun as a Young Man Frontispiece ' 

PAGE 

Fac-simile Signature of Patrick Calhoun 33' 

Stone Erected by Patrick Calhoun to the Memory of His 

Mother 38 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The Litchfield Law Schools 76 

Fort Hill 282 

Fac-simile of Letter of John C. Calhoun 432 



PREFACE 

The following " Life of Calhoun " was undertaken a number 
of years ago and has, by the labor it has entailed, shown most 
convincingly to the writer the vast field that Calhoun covered. 
During nearly forty years of our earlier existence, there were 
few subjects of public importance on which he did not take a 
leading part. Many of these concerned the system of slavery and 
the protection of the then civilization of our South, but the world 
of his countrymen would make a great mistake to suppose, as 
many do, that his work was confined to this one point. In his 
later years that subject was of controlling importance to him, 
as to all Americans ; but the case was far otherwise during much 
of his public life. 

The fact, however, that he was the leader in the losing strug- 
gle of the South has centred public attention on this one phase 
of his life's work, and his fame, — so great in his day, — has 
suffered a marked eclipse. Modern man, with slavery as much 
gone as is the civilization of ancient Egypt, or Assyria, can hardly 
conceive how vital were the questions presented to the South by 
the growth of abolition sentiment and the evident likelihood that 
in no long course of years the slaves would be emancipated. To 
the Southerner this result was ever a nightmare, promising a 
terrible upheaval, the loss of his existing civilization, and even a 
reversion to some state of half-barbarism. These predictions of 
his have not been fully realized, but we must remember that the 
generation that lived during Abolition did go through a period 
not so different. Most of us probably realize to-day that the 
fundamental difficulties in a popular government of the existence 
side by side of the two races are still unsolved and are perhaps 
no nearer solution than they were fifty years ago. Calhoun said 
that the negroes, instead of being the slaves of the individual, 
would become the slaves of the community, and the tendency is, 
beyond doubt, away from actual equality and toward some other 
form of absolute control by the white race. 

All this adds to the difficulty of writing a Life of Calhoun; 
and perhaps we have here the reason why the task has not before 

ii 



12 PREFACE 

been attempted. The student of modern times studies with in- 
finite patience the inscriptions on bricks buried some thousands 
of years ago, and the cultivated public are interested in the re- 
sults ; but the struggles from which has emerged our American 
civilization of to-day appeal to but few of our people. There 
is no adequate Life of Calhoun. Jenkins's " Life " (published 
soon after Calhoun died, and which is perhaps the one referred 
to by Cralle in his Note to the Oregon Negotiation a as " now 
being prepared for the press") is the most extensive, and there 
is no other even purporting to be full. There are several short 
ones, among which by far the best is that by Air. Gaillard 
Hunt, admirable so far as it goes, but only intended to be a 
sketch. 

Von Hoist's "Life" must also not be forgotten, — a work 
much lauded by a certain class of our historians, whose chief 
purpose seems to be to write down everything concerning the 
South and resolutely to refuse to present or to realize the milieu 
in which the Southerner lived prior to 1861. Von Hoist almost 
says in his early pages that he cannot imagine himself walking 
and talking with Calhoun and, when he comes to present the State 
Rights view held by the subject of his book, he shows a lack of 
comprehension of fundamental points which is quite inexcusable 
in one who had undertaken to write the Life. He had either 
never read Calhoun's arguments, or had not tried to understand 
them, for he could easily have done so; and it looks as if he 
had merely gulped down the partisan answers of Webster and 
others. 

To assert, as Von Hoist does, 2 that Calhoun held that our Con- 
stitution was an agreement made between the States on the one 
part and the United States on the other is to misstate most grossly 
what the State Rights School maintained as to the nature of our 
Government. Nor was it necessary to wait until Calhoun's day 
to ascertain what that school did maintain on this point. The 
very history of the origin of our Government showed plainly 
that the several States were the only parties to the Constitution, 
and that the United States was the resultant or derivative or 
agent for certain purposes of the States, much as a partnership 
results from the agreement of its members among themselves. 
The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-99 stated the matter most 

1 Calhoun's " Works," Vol. V, pp. 414-15- 
a "Life," pp. 139-40. 



PREFACE 13 

plainly, — " that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and 
is an integral party, — its co-States forming, as to itself, the other 
party." 3 

The origin of Von Hoist's error is apparently Webster's final 
speech in the great debate with Hayne. The latter had stated 
the matter accurately, that " the Federal Constitution, therefore, 
is ... a compact by which each State, acting in its own sov- 
ereign capacity, has entered into an agreement with the other 
States, by which they have consented that certain designated 
powers shall be exercised by the United States " 4 but a little 
further on he made the slip of saying " when it is insisted by the 
gentleman that one of the parties [the Federal Government] ' has 
the power of deciding ultimately,' " etc., etc. And he later re- 
peats this error, which his opponent, the great orator and skillful 
advocate, fixed upon with the grip of death and held up to crushing 
ridicule in the last short speech, which closed the debate. The 
blunder is far more ridiculous in Von Hoist's mouth, and has 
not the excuse of inadvertence in a largely extempore discussion. 

The State Rights theories, whether right or not, were guilty 
of no such shortcomings as this. They were scientifically very 
accurate. All the elements fitted together and made a perfect 
whole, conclusion following from premise in a way that is fasci- 
nating to many minds. To the present writer, who was carried 
to them by mental conviction in impressionable youth after the 
Civil War, they still seem absolutely unanswerable, if we ap- 
proach the subject and discuss it in the way that our public men 
did down to 1861-65. In my opinion, neither Webster nor any 
one else ever approached an answer to Calhoun, — I still mean 
on the basis on which they discussed the problem. The facts were 
plain, and the conclusion seemed to follow as day follows night. 

But was their method of approach the true one ? Are vast sub- 
jects, involving the welfare of millions upon millions, living and 
to be born, to be decided by the syllogism and the methods of the 
forum ? Can faulty human logic be allowed to conclude ques- 
tions of such infinite magnitude? It has rarely done so in the 
long run, though the method is always used for make- weight 
and has doubtless controlled in some cases, but man has in vital 

3 Cited in Calhoun's " Discourse on the Constitution," etc., in " Works," 
Vol. I, p. 355, and see also the same in the " Massachusetts Remonstrance," 
Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, 1813-14, Vol. I, pp. 350-351 
and in many other authoritative statements of that day and later. 

4 " Congressional Debates," Vol. VI, Part 1, 1829-30, p. 86. 



i 4 PREFACE 

matters thrown to the winds so frail a crutch as it affords. The 
" perils of the logical short-cut " in complex circumstances have 
been appreciated by some public men, even some who were 
logicians in a high degree. 5 

Instances might be cited by the score in which the results of 
theory and the syllogism have not been and could not be adhered 
to in practical affairs. The Roman Catholic Church in Italy 
itself recognizes Uniat Priests and their wives. St. Augustine 
balked at the inevitable logic that demonstrates that the Deity pre- 
destined for millions that they would be damned. Calvin was 
of a different mettle and almost revelled in this result, but mod- 
ern days have seen his followers eat away the essence of this 
article of their creed, — yet at the same time still claim to be Cal- 
vinists. The Catholics and the Christian Churches in general no 
longer follow out or want to follow out what is certainly the 
logical result of their beliefs, that they must destroy or at least 
silence such men as Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall and others, whose 
teachings have undoubtedly undermined the faith of centuries. 
And in the same general direction it may be mentioned that the 
most successful governments have been the most highly un- 
philosophical in history. Few laws have been passed in England 
or other countries governed by the parliamentary system, which 
have not been a hodge-podge of compromise. 

In the arguments which have been advanced in history and 
in some great law cases, we find again the like incompatibility 
between the conclusion of the syllogism and the result neces- 
sarily carried into effect in practice. The Attorney-General of 
England argued in 1624, on a quo ivarranto upon the charter of 
the Virginia Company, that the power conferred to carry the 
king's subjects to Virginia, if exercised without limitation, might 
result in the transfer across the seas of the whole population, and 
thus leave England a howling wilderness: whence he concluded 
that the power was too great to be bestowed on a private com- 
pany and therefore the charter ought to be revoked. 6 Most law- 
yers have heard arguments made in court not so dissimilar from 
this, based on some world-shaking cataclysm, which is, however, 
absolutely certain never to be realized in actual affairs. 

Nor were such arguments, or rather such absurdities, confined 
to one or two countries. The pages of the following Life show 

6 Morley's " Gladstone," Vol. I, p. 30Q- 

6 Fiske's " Old Virginia and Her Neighbors," p. 219. 



PREFACE 15 

a rich instance in an attempted demonstration, — scorned by Cal- 
houn,— that Texas was still a part of our Union in 1843, for 
the reason that the Federal Government had had no power to 
convey it away by the Treaty of 181 9. So, in 1609, when it was 
desired in the German Empire to make the monarchical power 
stronger, a young jurist, whose mind was perhaps obsessed by the 
idea of The Holy Roman Empire, advanced the thesis that the 
monarchy was, in accordance with the terms of the never-repealed 
lex regia of ancient Rome, an absolute one, and others had to 
demonstrate the unsoundness of this argument based on a law 
forgotten under the dust of centuries and belonging to the history 
of an entirely different people. 7 

Probably the following extract from Macaulay's review of 
Mill's " Essay on Government " sums up the truth as to such 
mental extravaganza as have been noticed : 

The fact is, that, when men, in treating of things which cannot be cir- 
cumscribed by precise definitions, adopt this mode of reasoning, when 
once they begin to talk of power, happiness, misery, pain, pleasure, mo- 
tives, objects of desire, as they talk of lines and numbers, there is no 
end to the contradictions and absurdities into which they fall. There 
is no proposition so monstrously untrue in morals or politics that we 
will not undertake to prove it, by something which shall sound like a 
logical demonstration, from admitted principles. 

Perhaps then, after all, Webster used the best weapons that 
could be used to bring about the birth of a nation. He could not 
meet the facts and the crystal clear deductions of Calhoun's logic 
from them, so he indulged at times in most barefaced assertions 
and appealed in splendid oratory to the pride and glory of our 
past and the promise of our future, moving his earlier opponent 
Hayne to an open acknowledgment of this feature of the won- 
derful orations of 1830. 

Nor could Webster then speak of what students since the Civil 
War, groping for an answer to the State Rights view, have 
called the historical growth of our nationalism. Such a process 
was then not recognized, was but in embryo, and any one who 
advanced it would certainly have been met by the cry of usurpa- 
tion and wrong. As a matter of fact, we can see to-day that, 
not only since 1789, but almost since our colonies were founded, 
the seeds of an American Nation were in existence. Slowly and 

7 " Deutsche Geschichte " von Karl Lamprccht. Zweite Abtheilung. 
Erster Band. Zweite Haelfte, s. 486. 



16 PREFACE 

insensibly they grew and spread, adding in time even new mean- 
ing to the written words of the Constitution, and not infrequently 
(it must be admitted) in the teeth of them, until by i860 many 
mystic cords bound us together, while the material bonds of 
the vast and ever increasing network of iron rails and the constant 
intercourse between the parts added other nationalistic elements 
of vast power. 

This whole subject was well presented by Lamar in his oration 
in Charleston in 1887 on the unveiling of the Monument erected 
by the Ladies' Calhoun Monument Association, and the orator 
intimated very plainly to his Southern audience the opinion that 
Calhoun had entirely neglected to take into view essential matters 
in our history, which were entitled to great weight against his 
theories. It was a bold and manly view for a man of the South 
to present to so highly Southern a community, but it seems to 
have been well received. Charles Francis Adams and others 
have since presented much the same view, and it is a curious 
fact that Calhoun himself recognized the like historical growth 
in England. 8 It is an interstitial process, very gradual and ad- 
vancing by insensible steps, and perhaps offers the best mode of 
escape from the irresistible logic of Calhoun and the State Rights 
School. 

What were these views, — now so nearly forgotten ? They are 
nowhere consecutively stated as a whole by Calhoun, but the 
reader interested in the subject will find much of them in the 
early portions of his " Discourse on the Constitution " 9 and in 
his " Letter to Governor Hamilton." 10 In the former he bears 
weight on the fact, — which was in 1789 undoubtedly in general 
recognized, — that our States were originally nations, small and 
of little power, it is true, but larger than some in Europe, and 
at the same time without any union at all among themselves. 
They created the Congress of the Revolution, voted as units 
in it, and gave their agency so little power that the Congress was 
obliged even to appeal to the States to pass laws which it had 
no power to pass. The name of the central body moreover was 
then and ever has been Congress, a word meaning a meeting to- 
gether of nations. 

The next central power, — the Confederation, — was palpably 

8 " Discourse on the Constitution," etc., in " Works," Vol. I, p. 394- 
""Works," Vol. I, p. in, ct seq. 
10 " Works," Vol. VI, pp. 144-193- 



PREFACE 17 

a mere union of States, and each State expressly reserved its 
sovereignty. Nor was the present constitution adopted for the y 
whole country by a vote of the majority of its people, as it would 
of course have been, if we had been one nation. No one seri- 
ously proposed such a plan. Each State adopted for itself alone 
and as to the people of any State the instrument was void and 
of no effect, until that State should ratify. North Carolina and 
Rhode Island remained out of the Union for eight and fourteen 
months respectively, after it was put into operation and there 
was no serious contention that they had not the right so to do or 
were willy-nilly a part of the United States. On the other hand, 
an opposing minority in any State, as for instance in the upper 
country of South Carolina, was at once swept into the Union 
against its will as a part of the State by the affirmative action of 
that particular State. 

Some writers have sought to draw far-reaching conclusions 
from the language of certain of the commissions issued to dele- 
gates to the Constitutional Convention. They forget that these 
commissions conferred no power but to mould a draft, as com- 
mittees are appointed to suggest a form of contract or settlement. 
The form of Constitution proposed in May, 1787, was a mere 
sketch like an unsigned deed or contract, and was of no force or 
effect whatsoever, until the breath of life was breathed into it. 
And this vital spark was only derived from the later action of 
nine States, approving quite separately and each for itself alone. 
Under this new Constitution, as well as by the terms of the 
Confederation, there was no merger of the States. Each remained 
an existing sovereignty. Rights and powers were reserved to 
them, and their continued maintenance was essential to the very 
existence of the government established. " We, the people," on 
which frail phrase the nationalistic school sought to build so 
much, was plainly of no real weight. Not only did the preamble, 
until nearly the end of the Convention, go on and list the thirteen 
States nominatim, but palpably the change was made for the 
simple reason that it was impossible to know in advance which 
of the thirteen would ratify. And more than this, a later clause 
of the instrument already provided that ratification by any nine 
States should be sufficient to establish the constitution among 
the States so ratifying. How could the preamble be left to read 
that we, the people of thirteen enumerated States ordain a con- 
stitution, the ratification of which by any nine States (the same 



V 



1 8 PREFACE 

instrument went on) was to be sufficient to establish it among 
the nine only? 

The Union formed in 1789 was then still a Union of States, 
and no consolidation. It was a more perfect union than the 
Articles of Confederation, and the new government was to act 
directly on individuals ; but the States did no act whatsoever from 
which a surrender or merger of their sovereignty (their very 
existence) could be inferred, and some of the ratifications con- 
tained assertions plainly negativing such an idea. To-day, when 
the subject has lost its importance, I think the student will gen- 
erally admit all this, and that the overwhelming sentiment in 1789 
and for a number of years afterward admitted and insisted on 
the continuing existence of the sovereignty of the States. Had 
those jealous little entities dreamed in 1787 and 1788 that it 
would be asserted that they were to cease to exist and to become 
merged into one nation, few of them would have ratified the instru- 
ment. Massachusetts did not want to sink her existence and 
merge with South Carolina and the rest of her little known sisters, 
any more than did South Carolina. They were quite too far apart 
and too diverse to have consented knowingly to such a course. 

To meet this difficulty, the nationalistic school took up the idea 
of divided sovereignty. The States were, it said, sovereign in 
some departments, but the United States equally so in others. It 
is quite true that the function to carry out certain powers was 
delegated to the United States and that relating to others reserved 
to the States, but this was merely a question of the exercise of 
these powers and did not touch sovereignty. The latter is by its 
very nature as incapable of division as is life or personality, 
and must rest as a whole somewhere. It had rested with the 
States at the time of the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, no 
act or series of acts of theirs can be shown by which they gave 
it up, and therefore it still remained to them. 

With the Union then a union between sovereign States, what 
was to be done, if the agencies of the Union should assume 
powers not granted and oppress one or more States? When 
some members of a partnership violate the articles, the suffering 
member goes to court for redress ; but a sovereign State cannot do 
this. What is then its remedy? It was contended by the Na- 
tionalists that, under certain clauses of the Constitution, the fed- 
eral judiciary was to decide this problem. That is to say, one 
mere department of the agency which the States had created, was 



PREFACE 19 

to pass judgment on questions as to the authorities that the \y/ 
creators had conferred on the central Government, even when 
one or many of the creating States denied the existence of the 
power. A vast function, indeed, and unlimited, — the like of 
which was surely never before conferred upon one department of 
an agency or derivative government ! Nor had the judiciary ever 
in history been meant to decide questions of national power, of 
sovereignty, and to conclude the whole world. Their function 
is to decide, — and of course finally decide, — suits between par- 
ties ; but this does not extend to deciding Who is the King, or 
what the ultimate nature of the United States Government, or 
any other question of a political nature. 

So it is infinitely unlikely that this idea, so foreign to the highly 
educated publicists of the Convention, was in their minds; and 
their language is absolutely satisfied by supposing it to mean sim- 
ply that the judiciary was to settle and conclude suits between 
parties. To these decisions would be attached the weight that 
belonged to precedents in Anglo-Saxon countries, but this had not 
extended to concluding Parliament or the Commons on a question 
of power. There is little reason to suppose that our founders 
meant to give far greater influence to the judiciary they were 
creating, and authorize them to settle finally what was the extent 
of the powers conferred by the States on the Central Government 
and in so doing to conclude not only the rights of the parties 
to the suit but the rights of the creating States. 

The question then recurs : How were disputes as to the ex- 
istence or non-existence of a power to be settled? The States, 
it has been already said, were different from the members of a 
partnership. The latter had a superior over them, could appeal 
in an orderly way to a civil court and thus obtain and easily 
enforce a decision. But the States, with their proud attribute 
of sovereignty knew no superior, and had only the remedies in- 
cident to sovereignty. It was here that Nullification or State In- 
terposition was brought in, first threatened and barely sketched in 
the rough in 1798-99 and its details worked out to completeness 
under Calhoun's inspiration in 1828-33. The claim was that 
any one of our States had, — as a nation voluntarily united in a 
league with others, — the right to decide for itself as to the 
extent of the powers it had conferred on the central agency, and 
to prevent the enforcement within its limits of any Congressional 
statute which it held was unauthorized. This is what South 



20 PREFACE 

Carolina did in 1832, and this the basis of reasoning on which 
was rested her action. 

To-day it seems absurd to almost every American, but at its 
date there was a large sprinkling throughout the country of men 
of brilliant intellect and of the highest character, to whom every 
step in the argument, — and the conclusion as well, — was as 
plain as Holy Writ ; while in our earlier history under the present 
Constitution, hosts of our public men would hardly have had a 
doubt upon the question. 

But the results of Nullification, as applied in practice, were most 
extraordinary. Let us consider the one concrete instance. Tariff 
laws, partly intended for protection, were nullified under the 
claim that the power to pass such laws was palpably not con- 
ferred, yet in the first session of the First Congress under our 
present Constitution, protection was discussed to no little extent, 
and the very second law on the statute books recited as one rea- 
son for its passage the necessity for "the encouragement and 
protection of manufacturers that duties be laid on goods." Cal- 
houn, too, who was the chief advocate of the Nullification in 
1832, had voted for the Act of 1816 and numbers of his utter- 
ances are quoted in this Life, which show that he was to no 
little extent inspired in his earlier public life with the desire to 
have Congress pass laws for protection. And, besides this, he and 
numbers of the leaders standing shoulder to shoulder with him in 
the contest of 1828-33 had only too recently been strong nation- 
alists, spurning the State Rights views of Cooper and others. 

In the face of this record, it was a mere paper limitation that 
Calhoun built when he wrote in his " Discourse " " that nulli- 
fication was only to be exercised in case of " a clear and palpable 
infraction of the instrument" [the Constitution]. The instance 
is one more example of how in such arguments each party ever 
assumes that its side will act in an orderly way and not go an 
inch beyond the perpendicular. In reality it always is and was 
in this case too plain for discussion that the asserted right was 
almost certain to be exercised for getting rid of any course of 
legislation a particular State might seriously dislike, no matter 
how slight the injury or how little the unconstitutionality might 
be palpable. And it furnished an almost certain device to undo 
the law; for the claim of the theory was that, when one State 
interposed its sovereign voice against a particular statute, that 

11 "Works," Vol. I, p. 280. 



PREFACE 21 

statute was at once to cease to be of effect within its limits, and 
the power it was based on was to be finally decided not to exist 
at all, unless, by a process similar to that of amendment, three 
quarters of the States should affirmatively decide that the power 
did exist. An easy way indeed for a very small minority to 
control a very large majority and to re-write the terms of the 
constitution ! 

Perhaps, there is some evidence that Calhoun felt these diffi- 
culties of the impracticability of " the high prerogative remedy," 
and hence conceded the necessity of a justification for nullifying, 
as well as elaborated the idea that, after nullification by one State, 
the others should call upon the amending process, and to this added 
that the nullifying State must then submit to the result, and should 
the power be affirmed to exist, must either cease its objection or 
withdraw from the Union. 12 Clearly needed though some such 
corollary was to the decent administration of affairs, I, at least, 
can see nothing in the theories of sovereignty that leads to or 
even permits the corollary and the control of the States' sover- 
eignty by such an outside influence. Sovereignty never has been 
controlled by such means, did not need a justification, and it looks 
like an addition devised in order to make the central theory work- 
able and avoid a confusion worse confounded. It was probably 
the like feeling that led Calhoun to object to the term Nullifi- 
cation and long to use instead that of State Interposition, which 
pointed to this corollary devised by him. 

Such was Nullification. And even in those early days, when 
Nationalism was a new-born babe or an embryo, so striking 
were the incongruities sure to flow from nullification that as sturdy 
a State-Rights man as Nathaniel Macon refused to accept it, at 
the same time that he asserted to the full the right of any State 
to secede at will from the Union. 13 

The right of secession concerns us less intimately here, but would 
have received pretty general, — or at least very frequent, — recog- 
nition in 1789 and for numbers of years later. It was an ever- 
present dread of our earlier statesmen, as may be seen from a 
thousand of their utterances. As a recent author has summed 
the matter up: 14 "Both [North and South] alike, when inde- 
pendence was declared, and even when the Constitution was 

12 Letter to Governor Hamilton, Jenkins' "Life,'' pp. 214, 222. 
" Wm. E. Dodd's " Nathaniel Macon," p. 385. 
14 Garrison's " Westward Extension," p. 12. 




/ 



22 



PREFACE 



adopted, regarded the Union as a confederacy from which any 
State might withdraw if it desired to do so." And other recent 
writers could be referred to who have reached very similar con- 
clusions, 15 while such could be plainly shown to have been the be- 
lief of hosts of our earlier men. 16 They often spoke in that day 
of their State as their country. 

But even here, so doubtful are such abstract questions as the 
rights of a sovereignty, so much are they perhaps bound up 
with the reciprocal rights of the others with whom a league or 
union has been formed, that possibly, after all, a justification is 
necessary for one or more members doing an act that the others 
regard as injurious to them. Plighted faith can hardly be denied 
all weight in the matter. It was evidently with this in mind that 
Gladstone, though at heart against the North, wrote to Cyrus Field 
in 1862: 

Your frightful conflict may be regarded from many points of view. 
The competency of the Southern States to secede: the rightfulness of 
their conduct in seceding (two matters wholly distinct and a great deal 
too much confounded). 

And again: 

There is last and (relatively to this subject-matter) best of all the 
strong instinct of national life, and the abhorrence of nature itself 
towards the severance of an organized body. 17 

It is impossible here to go at length into the question whether or 
not South Carolina had a sufficient justification in 1832, or the 
South in 1 861. In the latter case laws by the score had been 
passed in the North in violation of plain promises contained in the 
Constitution, but they were defended under the claim of a " higher 
law." And then still another question arises whether the exist- 
ence of this higher law can be recognized. The question thus 
becomes nearly infinite in its ramifications. 

15 See, for example, Claude H. Van Tyne's " Sovereignty in the Ameri- 
can Revolution " in Vol. XII, " American Historical Review," pp. 529-45. 
or his later " The American Revolution." 

" See Wm. E. Dodd's "Life of Nathaniel Macon," p. n, and same 
author's "Life of Jefferson Davis," p. 207; Pendleton's "Stephens," pp. 
108, 117-120, 186 et seq.; R. T. Bennett's "Address at Raleigh, N. C, on 
May 22, 1894," «n " Southern History Society Papers," Vol. XXII, p. 83. 

17 Morley's " Gladstone," Vol. II, pp. 71, 72. 



PREFACE 23 

In what way the heart was slowly and insensibly eaten out 
of the earlier view as to the powers and rights of the States 
could not possibly be traced. It never was abandoned in the 
South until after the Civil War; and numbers of leading men 
in the North asserted ultra State Rights views down to as late as 
1861, whenever the interests of their section were severely pinched. 
The abolitionists, of course, ever railed at the Union, but far 
sounder minds did the same thing. The opposition in the North 
to the annexation of Texas squinted dreadfully toward Nullifi- 
cation, and John Quincy Adams urged resolutions that " any at- 
tempt to annex the Republic of Texas to this Union would be a 
violation of the Constitution, null and void, and to which the free 
States of the Union, and their people, ought not to submit." 18 
Any number of like opinions could be cited from others, and 
Seward's " higher law " was but Nullification viewed from another 
angle. 

But, despite these occasional instances, probably the North had 
come by 1861 to look upon our country as a Nation. The his- 
torical growth of our Nationalism was there recognized by that 
time. But the difficulty still remains that the other large and 
contiguous area of our country, — the South, — did not recognize 
it, but adhered consistently to the beliefs of 1789 and later. And 
how then the problem is to be settled and a satisfactory explana- 
tion to be formulated why one party was wrong in its constitu- 
tional contentions in 1861-65, and which party was the wrong one, 
must be for other pens. 

Our feelings, our universal present views as to the absolute ne- 
cessity of the result attained, lead us rapidly and instantly to a 
conclusion, but the pale cast of thought is far from an aid. To 
view the obverse of this coin is but to bring in difficulties, — per- 
haps not doubts, — and, as with Milton's angels discussing " fixed 
fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute," the mind is soon " in 
wandering mazes lost." 

Probably a recent writer, quoted immediately above, has well 
put some truths in regard to the real essence of the matter. Con- 
trol, power, the virile desire to rule and even to exploit, lay back 
of much of the history. Mr. Garrison goes on, — directly after 
what has been quoted from him shortly above: 

""Memoirs," Vol. XI, p. 330. 




24 PREFACE 

And this view the South continued to hold afterwards — even to the 
extreme of secession and Civil War ; but the North, seeing the advantage 
of the national machinery provided by the Constitution for the support 
of its policy and the promotion of its interests, was gradually led to use 
its growing strength through that machinery and to adopt the nationalistic 
attitude. Under such circumstances, it was but natural for the weaker 
South, even if there had been far less historical justification for its 
attitude, to fall back on the defensive theory of State Rights. 

Here the problem must rest, so far as the present writer is 
concerned. Perhaps some day a mind with the analytical power 
that Calhoun possessed will grapple with the subject and point 
out to us the true conclusion of reason. And, when this is done, 
probably no great share of blame in a human sense will after all 
adhere to either of the great contestants in the monumental and 
inevitable struggle of 1861-65. 

My thanks are due to a great many persons. Without the aid 
of the " Calhoun Correspondence," brought together by Professor 
Jameson, my task could not have been accomplished. Some few 
other collections of letters in manuscript and in print have come to 
my knowledge, and every assistance in going over those in manu- 
script has been rendered me by their owners, whose names are all 
mentioned in the text. To Mr. Gaillard Hunt, of the Manuscript 
Division of the Library of Congress, I am particularly in- 
debted for calling my attention to highly important letters in the 
Library and for aid in going over them and in solving some 
of the mysteries they present. From Miss FitzSimons, Li- 
brarian of the Charleston Library Society, I have received fre- 
quent aid in consulting the Society's very large collection of news- 
papers, and in efforts to unfathom various matters. Mr. Theo- 
dore D. Jervey, author of the " Life of Hayne," has most kindly 
aided me in many instances with his knowledge of the South 
Carolina law system, as well as in regard to matters of local his- 
tory and of geography, which I was unable to understand. Mr. 
Salley, head of the South Carolina Historical Commission, has 
aided me in an examination of some of the early legislative pro- 
ceedings of South Carolina, still in manuscript, and has also kindly 
allowed me to reproduce certain illustrations contained in his arti- 
cle on the Calhoun family mentioned early in my text. Mr. Edwin 
Calhoun of Abbeville, Mr. and Mrs. A. P. Calhoun of Atlanta, 
the authorities of Clemson College, and Mr. W. A. Clark, Presi- 
dent of the Carolina National Rank in Columbia, have all allowed 
me to have photographs made of various portraits owned either 



PREFACE 25 

by them or their institution, and there are numbers of others who 
have aided me in different ways. Many of these are mentioned 
in the text, and my sincerest thanks are due and rendered to all. 

In regard to the illustrations contained in these volumes suf- 
ficient information is generally contained in the legends, but in 
some instances this is not the case. The frontispiece to the first 
volume is thought to be from the portrait owned by Mr. Patrick 
Calhoun and to have been painted at the time when Calhoun was 
Secretary of War. It was not possible to secure a copy of the 
original painting in time. 

The Reeve Law School Building was erected by Reeve in 1782 
on the same lot on South Street on which his dwelling-house 
stood. It was later removed and used as a part of a dwelling, but 
was carefully restored by Dwight C. Kilbourn, and in 191 1 was 
removed to its present site on the grounds of the Litchfield His- 
torical Society. The Gould Building was erected by Gould in 
1795 on the lot on North Street, where his residence stood, but 
was, after the giving up of the Law School, removed a mile west 
of the village, was there occupied for a time by a family of 
negroes, and was finally destroyed. 10 

The portrait by Rembrandt Peale, forming the frontispiece to 
the second volume, was painted for Mrs. Armistead Burt, Cal- 
houn's niece. It is marked as having been painted in 1834, but 
it has had some serious vicissitudes, and in a letter to Armistead 
Burt, dated November 17, 1838, Calhoun writes : *° 

My factor in Charleston writes me that he has received the Portrait 
from Mr. Peile [sic] and that the cost including the difference of ex- 
change is $103 25/100, which you will please pay my brother William on 
my account. I hope you will be pleased with it. 

The present owner is Mrs. Thomas Frost of Charleston, whose 
mother was brought up by Mr. and Mrs. Burt and often stayed 
also at Fort Hill, when going to school. Mrs. Frost has fre- 
quently heard her mother say that Calhoun thought this portrait 
the best ever painted of him. 

The War Department portrait reproduced at page 38 of Vol- 
ume II is said to have been found about 1870 by Secretary Bel- 
knap in an attic at West Point and to have been removed by him 
to the Department in Washington. 

19 Dwight C. Kilbourn's " Bench and Bar of Litchfield County, Conn.," 
pp. 191, 195. Pamphlet " Presentation Exercises. The Litchfield Law 
School, 191 1." 

20 " Correspondence," pp. 416-17. 



26 PREFACE 

The full-length portrait at page 374 of Volume II is from a 
painting at Clemson College which has on it a plate reading: 
" Details of likeness from Brady's Celebrated Daguerreotype. 
Painted by T. Hicks. Engraved by A. H. Ritchie. Published 
by R. A. Bachia, 12 Dey Street." Another copy hangs in the 
Carolina National Bank at Columbia and an engraving of the 
same is owned by Mr. Edwin Calhoun of Abbeville. The por- 
trait seems to be the original from which has been made, with 
several minor variations, the head and shoulders of Calhoun re- 
produced in Davis's " Rise and Fall," Stephens's " War between 
the States," and many other works. These reproductions are 
often spoken of as " the DeBloch " portrait, but are in reality 
quite different. Mrs. A. P. Calhoun, the granddaughter of Mrs. 
Clemson, has kindly loaned me a copy of De Bloch's portrait, 
three copies of which were made in Belgium from a miniature 
in a bracelet, but which was not liked (so Mrs. Calhoun informs 
me) by the family. It differs in many respects from the ordinary 
cut. Capt. John C. Calhoun of New York owns a second copy 
of the De Bloch portrait. 

William M. Meigs. 

Philadelphia. 



\ 



THE LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

CHAPTER I 

PRELIMINARY 

The Upper Country of South Carolina — Ancestry of John C. 

Calhoun. 

The settlement of America has been full of romance. The 
resistless power of the colonists pushing on across the conti- 
nent and forever subduing new regions to their control re- 
sembles the action of one of the forces of nature in its in- 
tensity and persistent pressure. Halted and dammed up here 
and there for a time, the wave of humanity has always ere 
long broken over the barrier and kept on upon its course, until 
finally the shores of the Western Ocean itself were reached. 
Men, the petty pawns of the social forces, have been worn out 
and sacrificed by the thousand on the crest of this torrent- 
like surge of humanity; but a vast destiny has thereby been 
opened up to our branch of the human race. The frontier, 
that outward edge of civilization beyond which lay only wild 
nature, has been pushed steadily on, and now for some years 
we have had no frontier-town in the American sense. From 
ocean to ocean, the whole of our territory has been harnessed 
to civilization. 

The history of few regions concerned in this growth offers 
so much of stirring interest as does that of the foot-hills and 
easternmost valleys of the long Appalachian chain of moun- 
tains. It is true that the first comers to Virginia and Massa- 
chusetts found terrible difficulties to overcome, but in general 
the settlers in what are now our Middle and upper Southern 
States had a comparatively easy task in filling the coastal plains 
and the fertile river valleys. They and their immediate suc- 

27 



28 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

cessors spread rapidly over the rich country to the westward, 
and in a remarkably short course of years created a series 
of separate colonies lying along the shores of the Atlantic and 
reaching inward nearly to the mountains, each colony with its 
own customs and with systems of law materially different the 
one from the other. 

But the great Appalachian chain of mountains once reached, 
the story was very different. Those towering hills were not 
to be passed by ordinary men. The mere barrier of nature 
was almost insuperable under the then conditions and would 
alone have long delayed settlement ; but, besides this, entrance 
upon the frowning mountain region meant also bloody con- 
flict with the French, the powerful rivals of the English in 
America. Many years elapsed before these hindrances began 
to be solved, and a new race had to enter upon the scene in 
order to overcome the obstruction. Neither the Quaker of 
Pennsylvania, the Dutch of New York, the Catholic of Mary- 
land, nor the. Cavalier of Virginia was alone competent to 
the task. 

The Scotch-Irish was the race that in the main accomplished 
this labor of Hercules. That strange people, made up of 
qualities so diverse, with a large dash of evil and so much 
good in its character, and of such unlimited pluck and en- 
durance, forced its way almost inch by inch over the rough 
foot-hills and lesser spurs of the mountains and ere long 
found itself in a rich region of smiling and fertile valleys. 
And these valleys did not run inland as did those of the coastal 
plains, toward the interior of the continent, but extended in 
a southwesterly direction, roughly parallel to the shores of the 
ocean as well as to the great chain of mountains. 

Down along the course of these valleys these Scotch-Irish 
and their descendants swept on, with numbers augmented by 
adventurous spirits from many other sources, until they had 
reduced to possession a long strip of territory lying inland 
from the older settlements and stretching from Western Penn- 
sylvania southwest wardly down the troughs of the mountain 
valleys to Tennessee and the Carolinas, where the mountains 
give out and end in a rich and rolling country. Constituting 



PRELIMINARY 29 

the " backwoodsmen " of Pennsylvania, they were generally 
known in Virginia as the " dwellers in the back country," 
while in the region we have to do with their section was 
usually called " the upper country." 

In all this long tongue of territory occupied by them and ly- 
ing to the west of the coastal plains they had a fairly uniform 
civilization of their own and were not greatly influenced either 
by the Quakers of Pennsylvania or by any of the other races 
with which they came in contact. And despite the long course 
of years now elapsed since they came into the region, one may 
still see to-day in many of the inhabitants the bolt upright hair 
and other lineaments of the old type, as pure as it was in the 
days of Calhoun, of Jackson, or of their ancestors. 

This is not the place to record the ceaseless struggle that 
this virile people had with nature and with that terrible enemy, 
the American Indian. Some instances, indeed, of these fea- 
tures will come out later in the lives of early Calhouns, but 
no extended sketch of that branch of history belongs here. 
Suffice it merely to call the reader's attention to this element 
in that people's life, and to remind him that by virtue of their 
position the settlers in the Appalachian valleys and in the upper 
country of South Carolina were the pickets and outlying 
forces to ward off Indian attack. They were thus almost cer- 
tain to be scattered and ruined before the dwellers in the more 
settled regions would even know that the savages were on the 
war-path. 

To this Scotch-Irish race of such strange contrasts of char- 
acter belonged, on both his father's side and his mother's, the 
ancestors of John Caldwell Calhoun. In personal appearance 
he bore clearly enough the marks of his ancestry; but I, at 
least, am unable to see the prevalence of the type in his mental 
make-up. The human mind is too subtle to allow us to trace 
with any clearness the origin of its peculiarities, and possibly 
we must be contented to suppose that the mind of this great 
American statesman was somewhat in the nature of what the 
thought of modern times calls a sport, or perhaps that his 
race was in the uncertain equilibrium of the mutants of some 
thinkers. In his father we shall find some of his qualities, but, 



3 o LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

so far as we know, none of that cold and relentless reason- 
ing, clear as the waters of the Gulf Stream and as crushing 
and resistless as fate, which so distinguished the son. And 
surely in the probable history of the families in their old home, 
we cannot imagine much that might go to develop a profound 
thinker and overwhelming logician. 

As we go backward in history, toward the beginnings of 
things, it is not usually long before a period of mist and un- 
certainty is reached, where one gropes in darkness, able to do 
little better than guess from supposed probabilities. So it 
is in a marked degree with the origin of families; and I do 
not think the case is different with the clan of Calhoun. One 
member of the family, however, writes that its history " has 
been distinctly traced back to the reign of Gregory the Great, 
and connected with the Earl of Lexon in Dumbartonshire, 
Scotland, and one of the younger sons of King Conock of 
Ireland, who came to the same region at that period. The 
name of Conock soon became corrupted into Colquohoun, 
Colquhoun, Colchoun and finally Calhoun. The first ances- 
tor who obtained the barony of Colquhoun in Dumbarton- 
shire was Umphredies, who lived in the time of Alexander the 
Second." x 

Another writer 2 undertakes to fix the date of ancient oc- 

1 " The National Register of the Society Sons of the American Revolu- 
tion," sub "Capt. John Caldwell Calhoun" (a grandson of the Senator), 
pp. 721-723. Captain Calhoun gives no authorities. The curious may 
turn, too, to the sketch of the Calhoun family given in Charles Croslegh's 
" Descent and Alliances of Croslegh, &c," (of which there is a copy in 
the Library of the University of South Carolina, at Columbia). This 
begins with Umfridis (b. 1190), and has a Rev. Alexander (b. 1662). the 
eighteenth in descent from him, whose son James married Catherine Mont- 
gomery and came out to America, with his brothers, Ezekiel and Patrick. 
Mr. Croslegh doubts the accuracy of this account, which had been sent 
him. 

2 Col. W. Pinkney Starke in his "Account of Calhoun's Early Life, as 
abridged in " Correspondence of John C. Calhoun," edited by Prof. J. 
Franklin Jameson (published in Annual Report of the American His- 
torical Association for 1809), pp. 65-89. Col. Starke's account has been 
severely criticised, and certainly with justice in many particulars, in the 
"South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine" Vol. II (1901), 
pp. 158-163; 248, 249; but there are many statements in his sketch for 
which he cites either local knowledge or reminiscences given him by nearly 
related members of the family. The difficulty is, of course, to determine 
what statements do and what do not rest on such authority. 



3 



PRELIMINARY 31 

currences with a minuteness that unavoidably leads one to 
doubt his accuracy. He tells us that " among the emigrants 
from Scotland to North Ireland who crossed the channel 
early in the eighteenth century was a family of Colquohouns 
and another of Caldwells [the family name of Calhoun's 
mother]. The Gaelic clan Colquhoun is said to have been 
very respectable in numbers. The Caldwells were Lowlanders 
from the Frith of Solway." He continues that owing to bad 
crops in the north of Ireland in 1727-28-29, the Calhouns, who 
had settled in county Donegal, concluded to remove to Amer- 
ica. Three brothers Calhoun, he goes on, emigrated in 1733 
and arrived in New York, but soon removed to the western 
part of Pennsylvania and later to Virginia. One of these three 
brothers was James, who with Catherine, his wife, and four 
sons, James, William, Patrick and Ezekiel, thus ventured to 
take their chances in the New World. 

Many of these statements are borne out by an authority, 
which may be fully relied upon as reproducing at least what 
Calhoun himself believed in regard to the origin of his family. 
And whether the Caldwells were Lowlanders, or the Col- 
quhouns left Scotland for Ireland at about the date asserted 
by Col. Starke or not, it is at least clear from all the authorities 
that Calhoun's mother, Martha Caldwell, as well as his father, 

3 " Life of John C. Calhoun," printed anonymously in 1843 as a cam- 
paign biography. This publication was always attributed to Robert M. T. 
Hunter, until Mr. Gaillard Hunt found in the Cralle papers a letter of 
R. B. Rhett to Cralle, dated in 1854, in which Rhett says that it was almost 
entirely written by Calhoun himself. Rhett was asked at the time to let 
it be published under his name, but refused to appear as the author of 
what he had not written. Hunter was then selected, and Rhett and Hunter 
read it over at Rhett's house. Rhett says that Hunter " inserted about 
a page and a half and became the putative author." See Mr. Hunt's 
Article in "American Historical Review," Vol. XIII, p. 311, and resume 
in his "Life of Calhoun," pp. 250-251. Calhoun wrote of the publication 
at the time to his daughter, saying merely that Hunter had " re-written 
most of the [sketch] so much so as to be fairly entitled to the authorship," 
while a letter to his brother-in-law speaks of transmitting by mail " a 
sketch of my life, prepared by some of my friends here," " Correspond- 
ence," pp. 524-525. Still more indicative of the real authorship is, per- 
haps, a letter dated October 25, 1842, to Calhoun from Joseph A. Scoville, 
later his clerk and a political supporter. Scoville writes : " As soon 
as possible, I would advise your sending me the proposed life, etc. I 
have seen the publishers, and they will wait very willingly. I will select 
some one here to edit it." " Correspondence," pp. 855, 856. 



32 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Patrick Calhoun, was Irish. There seems to be no clear proof 
as to exactly where the family landed in America, but Cal- 
houn says in his " Autobiography " that they were first in 
Pennsylvania, " where they remained some years," and then 
moved to the western part of Virginia. 

Further, as Patrick Calhoun died on February 15, 1796, 4 
in the sixty-ninth year of his age, and as the family is posi- 
tively found in Virginia in 1746, after having been some 
years in Pennsylvania, we may assume that Col. Starke's fixing 
of 1733 as the date of their emigration is not far wrong. At 
least, it cannot have been more than a few years later. It is 
equally clear that Patrick Calhoun must have been brought out 
as a child, or at most a youth. 

I know of no evidence from public records that the family 
lived in Pennsylvania, and the statement to that effect in the 
" Autobiography " is probably based on information derived 
by Calhoun from his father. But from this time on we stand 
on firmer ground. 5 About the middle of the XVIII cen- 
tury, there are authentic records of the presence of four 
brothers Calhoun, — James, Ezekiel, William, and Patrick, — in 
the western parts of Virginia. And they were there as set- 
tlers, taking up land and remaining some ten years. Their 
mother, 6 too, Catherine by name, was with them later, if not 
then, and a sister, Mary Noble, either the wife or the widow 7 
of John Noble. At least three other members of the Calhoun 
family are also mentioned : one George, who lived in the Reed 

♦This positively fixes the year of his birth as 1727 or early in 1728, 
and not 172-?, as stated by Col. Starke.' 

5 An admirable sketch of " The Calhonn Family in America " by A. S. 
Sallev, Jr., is to be found in the " South Carolina Historical and Genea- 
logical Magazine," Vol. VII (1006). pp. 81-98; 153-169- It is based on 
public records, newspaper notices, and other such evidence of unquestion- 
able character. I have used it largely, and with entire reliance. The 
facts following in the text in regard to the early history of the family 
are based on it, unless other authority is given. 

n There is no doubt at all as to the presence in America of this one 
member of the generation preceding that of the four brothers, but I know 
of no evidence tending to bear out Col. Starke's statement that her hus- 
band's name was James and that James emigrated, accompanied by two 
brothers, as well as by his own immediate family. 

7 Mr. Salley makes her out a widow, while a letter of Calhoun, printed 
in the "Gulf States Historical Magazine," Vol. I, pp. 439-44'. speaks of 
her husband as having removed with the Calhoun family to South Carolina. 



PRELIMINARY 33 

Creek region in 1746, while Hugh Calhoun lived in 1777 in 
South Carolina, near the other members of the family, and 
described himself in his will, executed in 1792, as formerly 
of " Fawney Co. Tyrone," and one John is described in a 
death notice as formerly of " Bushfield, L. Deny." 8 

Patrick Calhoun, the one of the four brothers who is of 
special interest to us as the father of John Caldwell Calhoun, 
was born in County Donegal, Ireland, in the year 1727, or in 
1728, as has just been shown. He was the youngest of the 
four brothers and was undoubtedly a minor and probably a 
child at the time of the emigration. Col. Starke writes that, 
" owing to an injury in childhood," he had had only six 
months at school in Ireland, and that he never had received 




Reproduced by permission from Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr.'s, article on the 
Calhoun family mentioned in the text. 



8 Mr. Salley is my authority for George Calhoun, " The Calhoun Family," 
ut supra, Vol. VII, p. 81. The facts as to Hugh and John are derived from 
the notice of Jameson's "Correspondence of John C. Calhoun" in the 
" South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine," Vol. I, pp. 45, 
134. 135. 160, 186, 187. Fawney is in Ireland, but I have been unable to 
learn where Bushfield was. 



34 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

any more school education in this country, and the statement 
is very likely true, though it does not seem to have been made 
by any other writer. He and his three brothers were in Vir- 
ginia in November, 1746, from which date their names often 
appear in the public records. Thus Patrick and several others 
were at that date appointed to lay out a road ; and grants of 
land on Reed Creek near Wytheville, in what is now Wythe 
County, Virginia, were made to various members of the family. 
On March 5, 1749, a tract of one hundred and fifty-nine acres 
on the waters of Reed Creek, 9 " near to where he lives," was 
surveyed for Patrick Calhoun. This was close to the time of 
his majority. 

There is evidence that the members of the family were not 
devoid of that pugnacity and dogged tendency to insist upon 
the rights they claimed, even when of little actual value, which 
is thought by some to characterize their race. In 1746 the 
four brothers Calhoun were charged by one James Patton 
with being " divulgers of false news," and were ordered to 
answer at the next court. This contest seems to have been 
easily composed; but only a few years later, in 1752, James 
Patton became involved in a bitter controversy with James 
Calhoun. This suit dragged on for a year and a half, and 
was apparently heard more than once by the same jury, de- 
spite their wish to be discharged. There was at least one 
mandamus obtained in the matter from the General Court, 
and finally the case seems to have been submitted to arbitra- 
tion. The action was for slander, the plaintiff asserting that 
Calhoun " had said in 1750 that Patton made over all his es- 
tate to his children to defraud his creditors, and that he had 
no title to the lands he offered for sale on Roanoke and New 
Rivers." 

Either in this suit or another one between the same per- 
sons an abstruse legal point bitterly contested was as to which 
party should pay a certain fee to the governor. Patton had 
contracted to deliver to Calhoun two patents for land at a 

Calhoun visited this region in 1846 and saw the identical place where 
his father had lived nearly a century earlier, "Correspondence," pp. 706, 
707. 



PRELIMINARY 35 

time when no fee was payable to the governor on issuing pat- 
ents, but since then a law had been enacted requiring a fee. 
Who should pay this new charge? The point was evidently 
one of bitter controversy and was finally settled, possibly with 
less of law than of horse-sense calculated to appease the con- 
testants by an order that each should pay the fee for one 
patent. In another case in 1752, it is to be presumed that 
this same James Calhoun, who was the oldest of the four 
brothers, had boldly taken the law into his own hands, for the 
records tell us that on November 20 of that year he was " bound 
to keep the peace towards James McCall." 

While these petty contests were going on in the then wilds 
of what is now Wythe County, Virginia, events of far greater 
moment were enacting on a wider stage. The early moves in 
the final contest between France and England for the mastery 
of the New World were made at this time. And, as has hap- 
pened more than once in the world's history, the power whose 
comparative democracy was destined to succeed in the end 
was at the outstart overwhelmed with disaster by its rival. 
Braddock met with his crushing defeat near Fort Duquesne on 

July 9, 1755- 

This was an event of awful import to the settlers on the 

borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. They were 
at once exposed to the inroads of the French and Indians, 
and many soon turned their thoughts to removal further 
South. In this same year, too, Governor Glenn of South 
Carolina made a treaty with the Indians by which much of the 
upper part of that State was ceded to the King of Great 
Britain. Here was a strong inducement to settle in the new 
region, and the Calhouns were among those to make this 
move. All the four brothers, — James, Ezekiel, William, and 
Patrick, — and their sister Mary Noble and mother Catherine 
Calhoun made the long and difficult journey. There is evi- 
dence that in their migration to Carolina they passed by the 
Waxhaws, where the family of Andrew Jackson had lived, 
and one writer 10 says that they were induced to fix upon the 

10 John H. Logan's " History of the Upper Country of South Carolina," 
Vol. I, p. 150. See also Col. Starke's " Sketch," p. 66. 



36 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

site they actually selected for their home in South Carolina 
by the description of its loveliness and fertility that they had 
heard from a band of hunters at the Waxhaws. 

Long Cane Creek was the region that they selected, and in 
a few years it came to be known as " The Long Canes Settle- 
ment." Situated in what was originally Granville County and 
later the district of Ninety-six, it is now included in Abbeville 
County, some eight miles from the town of Abbeville. The 
settlement was very new, having been begun only in 1750, and 
early in 1756 the whole number of settlers scarcely exceeded 
twenty. 11 John C. Calhoun wrote 12 nearly a century later 
that the family arrived in February, 1756, and settled in a 
group in what came to be known as Calhoun's Settlement, at 
the fork of two streams of that name, not far from where 
their waters empty into Little River. Patrick Calhoun se- 
lected either at the time of settlement or later a tract of slightly 
rising ground on the north side of the South Fork of Calhoun 
Creek, not far from its union with the North Fork. Long 
Cane Creek, from which the settlement took its name, lay a 
few miles to the eastward. 13 

It is doubtless hardly an exaggeration, when Col. Starke 
writes that, as the Calhouns neared this new home, " they 
worked their way along wagon-roads and foot-trails until the 
compass was perhaps their only guide." The following from 
Calhoun's just-quoted letter is also worthy of reproduction : — 
" The region composing the District was in a virgin state, 
new and beautiful, without underwood and all the fertile por- 
tion covered by a dense cane-brake, and hence the name of 
Long Cane. It had been recently got from the Cherokees, 
and the settlement was more than sixteen or seventeen miles 
from the boundary between them and the whites. The re- 

11 Ramsay's " History of South Carolina." Vol. I, p. 209. Calhoun's letter 
next cited says there were only two settlers, one at White Hall and one 
at Cambridge, then called Ninety-six. See infra. 

"Letter to Charles H. Allen, dated at Fort Hill. November 21, 1847, 
printed in "Gulf States Historical Magazine," Vol. I (1902-03), pp. 

430-41- 

13 Ibid., Col. Starke's "Sketch," p. 68. A map of the region is to be 
found in Mills's Atlas, 1820, 1825, of which there is a copy in the Charles- 
ton Library Society. 



PRELIMINARY 37 

gion was full of game, and among them, the buffalo." To 
this Ramsay adds 14 that in 1750 buffalo, deer, bear, and wild 
turkeys were there in great numbers, as well as beaver, otter, 
musk-rat, wolves, panthers, and wild cats. 

For a few years the new settlement grew fast, for it was 
not actually involved in the French and Indian war, which 
harried the borders further to the north. But the reduction 
of Fort Duquesne by the British in 1758, which brought peace 
to the North, entailed in turn upon South Carolina the misery 
of a war with the Cherokees and stunted the growth of the 
Abbeville region. 

The horrors of Indian warfare lie so far back of us that 
it is to-day hard to realize them. Often as they have been 
described on paper, the reality no doubt beggared all attempts 
at reproduction. They were by no means unknown in the 
upper country of Carolina, and the older generation of Cal- 
houns had their part in them. The early biographer 15 of 
Calhoun, indeed, writes that they had been driven from Vir- 
ginia by attacks of the Indians and that " in the hostile encount- 
ers that took place previous to their removal, Patrick was old 
enough to take a prominent part." It was, probably, how- 
ever, in South Carolina that the instance occurred, of which 
the " Autobiography," as well as the record of other writers, 
tells us in which an Indian distinguished for prowess as a chief 
and for skill with the rifle, selected Patrick Calhoun as an op- 
ponent, possibly in some small skirmish. The savage took to 
a tree, while the white man hid behind a log, and then fire- 
arms came into play. Calhoun succeeded four times in draw- 
ing his opponent's fire by raising his hat on a stick a little above 
the edge of the log, and finally the Indian exposed part of his 
person in an effort to see the effect of a shot. Here was a 
capital error, for Calhoun at once shot him in the shoulder 
and he was forced to fly. The accuracy of aim of the Indian 
was shown by four bullet holes to be afterwards seen in Cal- 
houn's hat. 

One instance of far more serious import occurred. In 1760 

""History of South Carolina," Vol. II, p. 598 (Appendix No. IX). 
15 John S. Jenkins's " Life of John C. Calhoun," p. 20. 



38 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

during the Cherokee war which broke out after the reduction 
of Fort Duquesne, the borders must have been seriously threat- 
ened, for the settlers at Long-Canes decided to remove all 
women and children for safety to Augusta, Georgia. The 
story of their surprise by the Indians can best be told in the 
words of Patrick Calhoun as printed in the South Carolina 
Gazette of February 23, 1760. 16 

Mr. Patrick Calhoun, one of the unfortunate Settlers at Long- 
Canes, who were attacked by the Cherokees on the 1st Instant, 
as they were removing their Wives, Children, and best Effects, to 
Augusta in Georgia for Safety, is just come to Town and informs 
us, ' That the whole of those Settlers might be about 250 souls, 55 
or 60 of them fighting Men; that their Loss in that Affair 
amounted to 50 17 Persons, Chiefly Women and Children, with 13 
loaded Waggons and Carts; that he had since been at the Place 
where the Action happened, in order to bury the Dead, and found 
only 20 of their Bodies, most inhumanly butchered; that the 
Indians had burnt the Woods all around, but had left the Waggons 
and Carts there empty and unhurt, and that he believes all the 
fighting men would return and fortify the Long-Cane Settlement, 
were part of the Rangers so stationed as to give them some Assist- 
ance and Protection.' 

According to the same newspaper of an earlier date, " the 
whole of the Long Cane settlers to the number of one hun- 
dred and fifty souls " were thus flying from their homes and 
were attacked by about one hundred Cherokees on horseback, 
at a time when the fugitives were getting their wagons out of 
a boggy place. They had forty gunmen, but unfortunately 
their guns were in the wagons. A few recovered their arms 
and fought the Indians for half an hour, but were then obliged 

16 I quote from Mr. Salley's " The Calhoun Family," ut supra, p. 85, 
86, where the account of the newspaper (published in Charleston) is repro- 
duced. See also ibitt, p. 85, an extract from the same newspaper of Feb- 
ruary 9, 1760, from which portions of my account are derived. 

17 This number does not seem to agree with that mentioned on the 
stone afterwards erected (see infra) by Patrick Calhoun to the memory 
of those killed, which makes the number out to have been twenty-three. 
The numbers were likely to be exaggerated so soon after the event, owing 
to the fact that the savages had carried some into captivity and that others 
had hidden and had not yet been able to return ; or possibly the figures 
given on the stone may refer only to those killed and buried at that 
particular place, while others were killed later on in flight. 




Stone Erected by Patrick Calhoun to the 
Memory of His Mother 



Vol. I, p. 3$ 



PRELIMINARY 39 

to fly. The bulk of the fugitives reached Augusta in safety. 
Among the slain were James Calhoun, 18 the eldest of the 
four brothers who had emigrated from Ireland, and Catherine 
Calhoun, their mother. She was at the time seventy-six years 
of age. Her son Patrick later erected in memory of her and 
of the others killed a stone that still exists, on which is an in- 
scription that reads : 

" Patk Calhoun Esq. 

In Memory of 

Mrs. Cathrine Calhoun 

Aged 76 Years 

who With 22 Others was Here Murdered by The Indians The 

First Day of Feby. 1760." 

The stone marks, of course, accurately the spot of the am- 
bush and is in a little valley about two hundred and fifty yards 
to the right of the road leading from Abbeville to Troy. It 
is about twelve miles from Abbeville and two and a half from 
Troy, three quarters of a mile beyond Patterson's Bridge over 
Long Cane Creek. 19 

Another writer 20 I have often quoted adds certain details, 
but unfortunately without giving any authority. The facts 
are, however, likely enough. After the massacre, he tells 
us, many children were found wandering in the woods, and 
one man alone discovered nine. It is well established that 
two, if not three, very young daughters of William Calhoun 
were carried off by the Indians. One of these was held in 
captivity fourteen years, but then somehow got back to civ- 
ilization and married a white man. The other was never heard 
of. Another niece of Patrick's, Rebecca, who had hidden in 
the cane-brake, was discovered by the uncle when he returned 
to bury the dead. She afterward became the wife of General 
Andrew Pickens. 

The settlers probably soon returned to their homes but were 

18 Letter of John C. Calhoun, dated Fort Hill, November 21, 1847, printed 
in "Gulf States Historical Magazine," Vol. I (1902-03), pp. 430-41. 

18 My authority here, as elsewhere in regard to the early years of the 
Calhouns, is the article by A. S. Salley, Jr., referred to above. 

20 Col. W. Pinkney Starke, as already cited. Mr. Salley is my authority 
as to the daughters of William Calhoun. 



4 o LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

not yet quite free from Indian alarms. As late as June, 1764, 
more than a year after the treaty of peace that closed the 
French and Indian war, the Assembly voted pay for a com- 
pany of " rangers " for six months to protect the Long Canes 
settlement against the Indians. It consisted of a commission 
officer, a sergeant, and twenty men. Patrick Calhoun, who 
was to serve without pay, was appointed the captain. 

This period ended, it seems, all serious difficulties with In- 
dians; but the savages were not the only trouble of the South 
Carolina frontier. There was a lamentable absence of gov- 
ernmental authority in the upper country during all its early 
years, and no court existed nearer than Charles Town. It 
was hence well-nigh impossible to try offenders by legal pro- 
cess. For years the settlers on the border sought in vain for 
relief. In 1768 a petition, in which members of the Calhoun 
family joined, prayed for the rights of British subjects and 
for the establishment of courts. They complained, moreover, 
that they were two hundred miles from the parish church, and 
that when they travelled all this distance in order to vote they 
were refused except in Prince William's Parish. " There 
were people on the frontier,"' said their petition, " that had 
never seen a school or heard a sermon." 

Recommendations were made in the legislature, in answer 
to the petition, that the back country be laid out in parishes ; 
but nothing came of these suggestions, and affairs grew to be 
intolerable. During their long border wars, the manners of 
the people had become much corrupted, and stealing. — espe- 
cially horse-stealing, that favorite form of border-land rob- 
bery, — had grown to be sadly frequent. When a thief was 
caught, moreover, there was no method for a legal trial, ex- 
cept by going down to Charles Town, some two hundred miles 
away. Many of the justices of the peace even, — the only 
legal authority in the region. — are said to have been scoun- 
drels and to have sided with the thieves. 

All efforts by petition and other legal means to obtain re- 
lief from this state of affairs having failed, the inhabitants 
did what has so often been done in new countries among a 
people having the instinct of self-government: they estab- 



PRELIMINARY 41 

lished a governmental system entirely apart from that which 
bore the sanction of law. Some of the best inhabitants united 
to create what was called the " Regulation." In plain words, 
they introduced a form of lynch law, and in proper cases 
sentenced thieves to receive a number of stripes on their back, 
coupling this often with a well-understood advice to leave. 
The thieves, on their part, quickly made common cause and 
offered resistance. Soon the majority of inhabitants took sides 
with one or the other of these parties, the Regulators alleg- 
ing as their justification absolute necessity and the substan- 
tial justice of their proceedings, while the others stood upon 
the right of a British subject to be regularly tried by jury. 

The contest grew so serious that the Governor appointed 
one Scovil to settle it under a commission that conferred high 
authority upon him. He seems to have been quite unfit for 
his office, for he soon called the Regulators to answer for 
their conduct and sent two of them to Charles Town for trial. 
The two parties were for some time drawn up against each 
other almost in hostile array, but entered into an agreement, 
or treaty, by which both left their rights to the Governor for 
settlement. This finally resulted in the Circuit Court Act of 
1769, under which various parts of the State, and Ninety-six 
among others, secured courts of justice within their limits, and 
numerous thieves were brought to trial. The district of 
Ninety-six, where the Calhouns lived, was established in 1768, 
possibly as a result of this contest. 

The State then enjoyed peace for a few years, but the ani- 
mosities that had been engendered continued to rankle, and 
the parties in the back country were thenceforth known as 
Regulators and Scovilites. These names, indeed, continued 
down to the Revolution, when the Regulators became Whigs 
and the Scovilites Tories. 

One very serious trouble of the situation then and later was 
the heterogeneous population impregnated with the strong an- 
tipathies brought over from the old country. The Scotch are 
said to have been generally loyal, while the pure Irish were 
no more fond of English rule in Carolina than they had been 
in their ancient home. There were Quakers, too, with their 



42 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

peculiar beliefs and a method of life so different from that of 
ordinary men that they lived largely to themselves; while a 
sprinkling of French, Germans, and Swiss served still further 
to complicate the situation. 

It was a most dangerous population in which to light the 
flames of civil war, and probably the Revolution bore more 
heavily upon the up-country of Carolina than upon any other 
part of what was soon to be known as the United States. It 
would be difficult to conceive of a more terrible internecine 
war. Ramsay wrote that " The single district of Ninety-six 
has been computed by well-informed persons residing therein 
to contain within its limits fourteen hundred widows and 
orphans made by the war." 21 

Harrowing tales were told of bloody murders committed 
by the Tories, and it cannot be doubted that the Whigs were 
in many instances open to the like charge. One Whig family 
of interest to us, and a daughter of which was destined to be 
the mother of John Caldwell Calhoun, may serve to typify 
the stormy days of the Revolution in upper South Carolina. 
Martha Caldwell had four brothers at the outbreak of the war. 
Of these, one fell at the battle of the Cowpens, it is said, with 
thirty sabre wounds upon his body; another was taken prisoner 
by the English and confined in a dungeon at St. Augustine for 
nine months; and a third, Major John Caldwell, was mur- 
dered in cold blood by the Tories in his own yard, after they 
had destroyed his house by fire. 22 

The war touched Ninety-six in a larger way, too. At the 

21 Ramsay's " History of South Carolina " (published in 1808, and ap- 
parently written in 1798 and later), Vol. I, p. 452. Ibid., pp. 210-217; 
423-429. II, 126, 127; Simms's "South Carolina," pp. 120-124, 142-147, 
225, 326-30, 351 ; " Sketch of Judiciary in South Carolina," contained in J. 
B. O'Neall's " Bench and Bar of South Carolina," Vol. I, pp. x, xi ; upon 
which authorities my statements for this whole period are based. See 
also " Sectionalism and Representation in South Carolina " by William A. 
Schafer, contained in "Annual Report of the American Historical Asso- 
ciation " for 1000, Vol. I, pp. 335-337- , „ , „ . _ _ 

22 Calhoun's "Autobiography." "The Annals of Newberry, by J. B. 
CNeall, pp. 244, 245. The statement as to the brother confined at St. 
Augustine has been doubted in Gustavus M. Pinckney's "Life of Calhoun," 
p. 13; but seems to be fairly well established by an article in the "South 
Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine," Vol. V (1904), pp. 261, 
262. 



PRELIMINARY 43 

time of the effort to capture Charlestown in 1776, by the com- 
bined army and navy of the British, the Tories and Indians 
had arranged for an attack upon the western settlements, but 
the defeat of the effort upon the capital put an end to this 
plan, and for four years the West enjoyed quiet. But when 
Charlestown fell in 1780, the circumstances were reversed, and 
the " king's friends," as the Tories called themselves, had the 
upper hand. The British, indeed, maintained a post in Ninety- 
six for thirteen months, and during this period, according to 
Ramsay, the country " was filled with rapine, violence, and 
murder." In 1781, Greene marched with his main army to 
reduce this station and had nearly succeeded, when a relief 
party arrived and forced him to abandon the effort. 

There is no evidence, so far as I know, that Patrick Cal- 
houn had any direct share in these movements of the War of 
the Revolution, though other members of the family served 
for long periods in the army. There will be occasion later to 
refer to a nephew of Patrick, John Ewing Calhoun, 23 who 
went to Charlestown early in the war to study law, but en- 
listed instead, — in August, 1776, — as a private in Colonel 
Charles Drayton's Volunteer Company, and was not admitted 
to the bar until 1783. He was later United States Senator 
from South Carolina and was the father of a daughter who 
proved of immense importance in the life of John Caldwell 
Calhoun. 

With the treaty of 1793, which closed the Revolution, came 
at last real peace to Ninety-six. The troubles of its earlier 
days are summed up as follows by Ramsay : 

From the first settlement of the upper country till the peace 
of 1783, a succession of disasters had stunted its growth. The 
years 1756, 1757 and 1758 were attended with no uncommon 
calamity. The same may be said of the years 1770 and 1775, 
but with these exceptions, the upper country was for nearly 
twenty years of the first thirty of its existence kept in a con- 
stant state of disturbance either by the Indians or Tories and 

23 " South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine," Vol. I, pp. 
134, 135, 186, 187. O'Neall's " Bench and Bar of South Carolina," Vol. II, 
P- 599- 



44 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the contentions between Regulators and Scovilites. Under all 
these disadvantages, it grew astonishingly. 

Patrick Calhoun must have shared in all its ups and downs, 
and it will be seen later that his bold and determined character 
bore deep traces of the life of trial he had long lived. 

It is evident that he became prosperous in a worldly sense. 
Six conveyances of land to him are on record 24 between 1763 
and 1768, three of them on Long Cane Creek and at least one 
on Calhoun Creek, and the United States Census of 1790 25 
tells us that he had thirty-one slaves, a number exceeded by 
only three and approached by but few settlers in the same far- 
off outlying district. He was a surveyor by occupation, and 
is said 2C to have been an eminent one. His brother William 
kept a store at which were sold corn, rye, wheat, flour, pork, 
and liquors, and Patrick's name appears quite occasionally in 
this brother's journal 27 as a purchaser of fairly liberal quanti- 
ties of these latter beverages as well as of other more neces- 
sary solid provisions. 

On September 10, 1766, he had the misfortune to lose his 
wife. Her maiden name was Jane Craighead, and she was 
the daughter of Rev. Alexander Craighead of Rocky River, 
North Carolina. It is said 28 that they were already betrothed 
at the time of the Indian ambush in February, 1760. Nothing 
further is known about her except what the South Carolina 
Gazette of Monday, October 13, 1766, records that on Sep- 
tember 10, on a miscarriage of twins there died at Long Canes 
" in the twenty-fourth 29 year of her age one of the most pious 

24 Review of " Calhoun's Correspondence " by Jameson, in the " South 
Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine," Vol. II, pp. 158-163. 

""Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States taken 
in the year 1700, South Carolina." Published by the U. S. Government in 

I9°8- 

26 0'Neall's "Bench and Bar of South Carolina," Vol. II, p. 283; also 

Starke's " Sketch," pp. 66, 72. 

27 Published by Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., in " Publications Southern History 
Association," Vol. VIII ( 1904), PP- 179-195- 

28 " History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, ' by George 
Howe, Vol. I, p. 331. . 

2» This age renders it impossible that Patricks first marriage should 
have occurred, as Col. Starke (" Sketch," p. 66) says it did, during the 
residence of the Calhouns in Virginia. They had left there in 1756, if not 



PRELIMINARY 45 

and accomplished young women in these parts, in the person 
of Mrs. Calhoun, the wife of Patrick Calhoun, Esq. and daugh- 
ter of Rev. Alexander Craighead." It is evident that the 
twins did not survive. At a subsequent date, which has not 
been fixed, Patrick Calhoun married 30 Martha Caldwell, who 
was born in Charlotte County, Virginia, but was a resident of 
what is now Newberry County, South Carolina. The Cald- 
wells are said 31 to have been Huguenots and to have fled from 
France, some to Ireland and some to Scotland, at the time of 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The branch to which 
Mrs. Calhoun belonged was undoubtedly Irish. 32 She and 
Patrick Calhoun had the following five children : James, Cath- 
erine, William, John Caldwell, and Patrick. 

Patrick Calhoun was by this time not only a man of some 
property but of prominence as well. He was elected in 1769 
to the Commons' House of Assembly of South Carolina from 
Prince William's Parish at a time when no representative from 
the Up-Country had yet sat in the legislative body of the State. 
He was, moreover, again elected in 1775, in the early days of 
the Revolutionary movement, to the First Provincial Congress 
as well as to the Second. This body adopted a constitution 
for the State of South Carolina and resolved itself into a Gen- 
eral Assembly. He then continued to serve in almost every 
General Assembly until his death in 1796 and was a member 
of the Senate at the last session preceding that date. He was 
also a Justice of the Peace for Granville County and later for 

1755. The quotation in the text is from the already cited review of 
Jameson's " Calhoun Correspondence " in the " South Carolina Historical 
&c. Magazine," pp. 248, 249. 

30 There is possibly some evidence that Patrick Calhoun was married 
three times, and that Martha Caldwell was the third wife. The already 
mentioned diary kept by William Calhoun, brother of Patrick (" Publica- 
tions of the Southern History Association," Vol. VHI (1904), pp. 174-195), 
records (p. 193) the marriage of Patrick Calhoun and Sarah McKinly on 
February 26, 1767. I do not see what other Patrick this can well have 
been. Ezekiel the immigrant had a second son, Patrick, but he was 
necessarily very young in 1767, as his elder brother, John Ewing, is 
stated to have been born "about 1750." 

31 J. B. O'Neall's "Annals of Newberry," p. 242. The family name cer- 
tainly bears no evidence of its alleged French extraction. 

32 Calhoun's "Autobiography." Starke writes that the Caldwells were 
Lowlanders from the Frith of Solway. 



46 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Ninety-six District, and was elected judge of the County Court 
for Abbeville County, Ninety-six District, in 1791. 33 

His environment (to use the pet word of modern days) was 
one likely to develop character in a man who had any of the 
raw material thereof in his make-up and we need not wonder 
at being told that the effect of his mode of life " upon a mind 
naturally strong and inquisitive was to create a certain degree 
of contempt for the forms of civilized life, and for all that 
was merely conventional in society." He claimed all the rights 
which nature and reason seemed to establish, and he acknowl- 
edged no obligation which was not supported by the like sanc- 
tions. It was under this conviction that, upon one occasion, 
he and his neighbors went down within twenty-three miles of 
Charlestown, armed with rifles, to exercise a right of suf- 
frage which had been disputed : a contest which ended in elect- 
ing him to the Legislature of the State, in which body he 
served for thirty years. Relying upon virtue, reason, and 
courage as all that constituted the true moral strength of man, 
he attached too little importance to mere information, and 
never feared to encounter an adversary who, in that respect, 
had the advantage over him : a confidence which many of the 
events of his life seemed to justify. Indeed, he once appeared 
as his own advocate in a case in Virginia, in which he re- 
covered a tract of land in despite of the regularly-trained dis- 
putants who sought to embarrass and defeat him. He op- 
posed the Federal Constitution, because, as he said, it per- 
mitted other people than those of South Carolina to tax the 
people of South Carolina, and thus allowed taxation with- 
out representation, which was a violation of the fundamental 
principle of the Revolutionary struggle. 34 

33 1 follow Mr. Salley. The " Autobiography " differs slightly. The 
writer of the review of Jameson's " Calhoun Correspondence," ut supra, 
p. 160, says that from the time of his first election in 1769 he was "con- 
stantly in the House, and the proceedings of the House show he was one 
of the ablest men in that body. He was a ready debater, and his words 
were well chosen and strong." 

34 " Autobiography," p. 4. In 1786, he opposed the bill to authorize 
Congress to regulate the trade of the United States and moved an amend- 
ment to require the consent of eleven States (instead of nine, as was 
proposed) to any such law, but the amendment was at once lost and nine 
carried almost unanimously. The Charleston " Morning Post and Daily 
Advertiser," February 9, 1786. 



/*■/ 




PRELIMINARY 47 

One other story should be told here as to Patrick Calhoun, 
which may serve to illustrate his dislike of lawyers and possi- 
bly thus explain why he undertook the conduct of his own 
case. O'Neall writes 35 that once in the Legislature of the 
colony during a debate upon some law to give a reward of so 
many shillings for a wolf's scalp, Patrick Calhoun said that 
he would much rather " gie a poond for a lawyer's scalp." 
He died on February 15, 1796, as is learned from The City 
Gazette or the Daily Advertiser of Charleston of March 7, 
1796. 36 It contains the following details: 

Died at his seat in Abbeville county the hon. Patrick Calhoun 
esq. in the 69th year of his age. He had served as a member 
of the Legislature in this State for many years ; was the first 
person who ever acted in that capacity from that part of the 
State in which he resided ; and was a member of the Senate at 
its last session. During the past summer he was seized with a 
lingering fever, which much enfeebled his constitution. On his 
return from Columbia he was seized with a bleeding at the 
nose, which exhausted him gradually until his life came to a 
close. He was a friend to virtue and piety ; and a foe to vice in 
every form. 

Col. Starke is doubtless fully justified in speaking of him as 
" the pioneer and patriarch of Abbeville." 

35 J. B. O'Neall's "Annals of Newberry," p. 249. I do not understand 
why so broad a Scotch accent is attributed to Patrick Calhoun. 

36 Quoted in Mr. Salley's article, ut ante, Vol. VII, p. 90. 




CHAPTER II 

EARLY YEARS 

Boyhood — Schooling — Youthful Pursuits and Influences 
— Conditions, Social and Political, in South Carolina — 
Slavery. 

» 

John Caldwell Calhoun, the third son and fourth child 
of Patrick Calhoun and Martha Caldwell, was born at the 
Long Canes settlement, in what was then the District of Ninety- 
six, on March 17, 1782, and was, therefore, at the date of his 
father's death on February 15, 1796, within a few days of thir- 
teen years and eleven months of age. He was hence quite 
old enough to retain many memories of his father and to have 
had his character to a considerable extent moulded by him. 
Indeed, he himself wrote that among his earliest recollections 
was one of a conversation when he was nine years of age, 
in which his father maintained that government to be best 
which " allowed the largest amount of individual liberty, 
compatible with social order and tranquillity, and insisted that 
the improvements in political science would be found to con- 
sist in throwing off many of the restraints then imposed by 
law and deemed to be necessary to an organized society." 1 
The boy had been but about six years of age at the time when 
the adoption of the federal constitution was opposed by his 
father and the general opinion throughout their part of South 
Carolina and, so far as we know, had not even any recollec- 
tion of the event. 

His boyhood was probably like that of millions of other 
boys, and no hint reaches us of marked precocity. Indeed, 
with the one exception just mentioned of his own recollection 
of his early years, nothing of any moment has survived with 

1 " Autobiography," p. 5. 

48 



EARLY YEARS 49 

certainty other than a rather abortive attempt at schooling when 
he was in his fourteenth year. 

The earliest glimpse we have of young Calhoun is in i?94> 
when the settlers in the region were apparently seeking a Pres- 
byterian minister. One Moses Waddel, then a young divine 
and later widely known as the most successful of Southern 
schoolmasters, was at that time probably an applicant for the 
place and stayed in the Calhoun house. He described in later 
years " that evening's hospitable entertainment around the wide, 
old-fashioned chimney, the sire in one corner, the fair old ma- 
tron in the other, and beside her an interesting daughter." 
And goes on to say : 

After some time a door was opened, and a youthful head, 
with very disheveled locks and strong features, peeped in, but 
was instantly withdrawn. That strong-featured lad of twelve 
years with disheveled head, was John C. Calhoun. 2 

In about a year, Waddel married the " interesting daughter " 
in question, Catherine Calhoun, and it will be seen shortly 
that he came some years later to be an important element in 
the training of his young brother-in-law. 

Schools had hardly any regular existence in upper South 
Carolina at that date and even when present were doubtless 
most primitive. The " Autobiography " tells us that there 
was not an " academy " in the section, and the nearest one 
was kept by Mr. Waddel in Columbia County, Georgia, some 
fifty miles away. Starke adds to this that occasionally an 
" old Field school," — meaning perhaps simply a school opened 
for a time in some shanty erected in one of those abandoned 
clearings which seem often to be known as " old fields " in a 
new country, — was opened for a few months by some itiner- 
ant teacher capable of instructing children in the rudiments. 
He was himself old enough to remember one of these in the 
Calhoun neighborhood, consisting of a log hut with rude ap- 
pliances. " In the year 1794," the same writer goes on, there 
was a school-house " at Brewer's, half way between Mr. Cal- 

2 " History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina," by George 
Howe, Vol. I, p. 331. See also Starke's "Life," p. 71. 



50 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

houn's and Little River, and a tradition existed that John 
Caldwell went to school there for a few months when quite 
young." 

This tradition is possibly borne out by the " Autobiography," 
which speaks of Calhoun's early tuition as having been " very 
imperfect, and confined to reading, writing, and arithmetic in 
an ordinary country school." With this exception the first 
regular instruction he had was during a short period at the 
above-mentioned academy of his brother-in-law, Moses Wad- 
del, probably from about the end of 1795 to early in 1796, 
when he was nearing fourteen. But destiny seemed determined 
to close to him the avenue of education, for his father died 
in February, 1796, and shortly after that his sister, Mrs. Wad- 
del, died, and the academy was for the time being discontinued. 
Young Calhoun remained for a time with his brother-in-law — 
he passed there in all about fourteen weeks — but with what 
object is not very clear. Waddel was away from home most 
of the time upon his clerical duties, and the boy was apparently 
much alone and without any white companion. 

Inborn tendencies, however, had their way. Waddel main- 
tained in his home some sort of circulating library, and this 
attracted young Calhoun's attention. History in particular 
became his delight, and so deeply was he interested in this his 
first draught upon the stored knowledge of the past that, to 
quote the authoritative " Autobiography " : 

... In a short time he read the whole of the small stock of 
historical works contained in the library, consisting of Rollin's 
Ancient History, Robertson's Charles V., his South America, and 
Voltaire's Charles XII. After despatching these with eagerness, 
he turned with like eagerness to Cook's voyages (the large edi- 
tion), a small volume of essays by Brown, and Locke on the 
Understanding, which he read as far as the chapter on Infinity. 
All this was the work of but fourteen weeks. 

So closely did he apply himself that his eyes began to fail 
and his health to give way. Soon his mother, informed of 
this by Waddel, sent for her son to come home, and there 
the open air and exercise repaired the boy's plastic frame. 



EARLY YEARS 51 

The home region was doubtless still full of game, and he ac- 
quired a fondness for hunting, fishing, and other country 
sports. Four years were passed away in these pursuits and 
in attending to the farm, during his brothers' absence, to the 
entire neglect of education as such. But the exercise and 
rural sports helped to endow him with some of the vigor he 
was destined to need in his great career, and he soon acquired 
a fondness for agriculture, — a love that never left him. 3 

During these four years at home, young Calhoun was rap- 
idly drifting into the position of director of the family farm. 
The two older brothers, William and James, — probably at the 
instigation of " the managing mother, a canny Scotchwoman," 
as Col. Starke writes, — were " sent off," the one to Charles- 
ton and the other to Augusta, where they obtained employ- 
ment as clerks, and the direction of the farm fell by degrees 
into the hands of John Caldwell. Col. Starke tells us, too, in 
part on the authority of a relative, James Edward Calhoun, 4 
that he proved a very successful manager, making good crops 
whenever it was possible. The evidence does not exist that 
would enable one to go far into this point, so it will possibly 
be best simply to assume that he was careful and diligent, at- 
taining success when it could be attained. 

Leaving him, then, at his agricultural work, before coming 
to the turning point of his early life, some effort must be made 
to describe the home life and influences under which he lived 
until past eighteen years of age. These were the sources from 
which he received the bulk of the training that constituted al- 
most his only education in the world down to that time. 

The Calhoun settlement lay in that part of South Carolina 
which is to-day known as the Piedmont region and constitutes 

3 The " Autobiography " is my authority for all statements relating to 
this period of Calhoun's life, except when some other is given. 

4 James Edward Calhoun was a son of Calhoun's first cousin. John 
Ewing Calhoun, and grandson of Ezekiel, a brother of Patrick. He was 
hence a brother of Calhoun's wife. He lived to " not far from a hun- 
dred years of age," and was well known to Col. Starke. I have in the 
text softened the latter's statements, which verbatim are that " when he 
(John C. Calhoun) took charge of his brother's property, he made the 
largest crop ever made and saved him from bankruptcy," and he quotes 
James Edward Calhoun as stating that " under whatever overseer, he 
always made fine crops." 



52 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the foot-hills of the Appalachian chain of mountains. Dis- 
tant about two hundred miles northwestwardly from Charles- 
ton, it has an elevation of roughly five hundred feet above sea- 
level. The country was, for the greater part, prairie, but 
gently undulating; the soil a rich black loam, and the whole 
district well watered by streams that find their way by the 
Savannah River to the Atlantic Ocean. The gentle, soft 
beauty of the landscape was then, as now, most pleasing to 
the eye, and the region admirably adapted to agriculture. 
Further to the north lay the southern limit of the Appalachian 
chain of mountains, whose lofty summits here at last, after 
their long continental course, come down gradually to the level 
of the flat coastal plains. 

The whole district was most primitive at about the end 
of the eighteenth century, and settlers must have been but 
scattering, and the whole life full of the rudeness of the fron- 
tier. The houses were probably nearly all built of logs. Col. 
Starke, who knew the Calhoun one well from having repeat- 
edly slept there in early childhood, writes that it was " the 
first framed house in the neighborhood." It was situated on 
slightly rising ground on the northern side of the creek, called 
after the Calhoun family, and was so well built, he adds, as to 
last nearly a century. It had only been destroyed by fire a few 
years before he wrote, and two chimneys still remained stand- 
ing at that time. The house consisted of two stories, with 
a sitting-room to the left on entering, and four rooms in all 
on each floor. The scant furniture and decorations inside 
must be left to imagination. 

It is probable that the Calhoun house, though far from 
luxurious, was one of the most comfortable and, — at least in 
some ways, — best appointed in the neighborhood. There was 
a high degree of respect paid to the father by the neighbors, 
and he is very commonly referred to as " Mr.," or " Esquire." 
It has already been said, moreover, that he appears to have 
been in comfortable circumstances and was the owner of 
thirty-one slaves. When these latter were brought to the 
district is not known, but Col. Starke is authority for the 
statement that Patrick Calhoun, returning upon one occasion 



EARLY YEARS 53 

from his legislative duties 5 in Charles Town, " brought home 
on horseback behind him a young African, freshly imported in 
some English or New England vessel. The children in the 
neighborhood, and perhaps many of the adults, had never be- 
fore seen a black man. Mr. Calhoun gave him the name of 
Adam, and in good time got a wife for him. At the time 
of John Caldwell's birth, Adam had a family coming on, one 
of whom, named Sawney, was a playmate for Mr. Calhoun's 
boys." 

During the term of more than eighteen years that Calhoun 
passed on the family plantation it has been seen that his school 
education was very scant, and it is likely that he had not 
much opportunity for self-education. Books were costly, and 
doubtless rare at that time in the backwoods. But the father 
had to go to Charleston to attend meetings of the Legislature, 
and it may be that, as suggested by Col. Starke, he would oc- 
casionally bring back with him in his leather saddle-bags (the 
journey was probably made on horse-back) " a book for his 
children, especially for John, who took to reading from early 
boyhood." I know, however, of no actual evidence of the 
boy's showing any fondness for reading, until his already nar- 
rated stay at Waddel's school, when between thirteen and 
fourteen years of age. 

But after that date the story is possibly different, though 
our knowledge in regard to the subject is scant enough. A 
copy of the South Carolina Gazette for May 10, 1798, was 
preserved among the Calhoun papers, 6 and bears in many parts 
the pencil-marks of the then sixteen year old John Caldwell. 
Here we have the earliest actual evidence of the youth's inter- 
est in public affairs. It is, moreover, far from bald guessing to 
assume that a boy, who had at fourteen so greedily devoured 

6 Patrick Calhoun's first service in the Legislature was in 1760, ante. 

G Col. Starke is authority for this statement and for that as to the 
handwriting. He is apparently endorsed also hy Prof. Jameson, who tells 
us (Foot-note to Col. Starke's "Sketch," p. 76) that among the contents 
of the newspaper in question were " accounts of proceedings in Congress 
on April 11 and 13, including a party debate on relations with France; 
memorials from Pennsylvania and Baltimore on the same subject; Presi- 
dent Adams's reply, April 21, to an address of the citizens of York, Pa., and 
the proceedings of a public meeting at Charleston on May 4. Most of these 
are pencil-marked." 



54 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the books in his brother-in-law's library, did not at any time 
afterward entirely lose that taste and would find some means 
to gratify it. 

The chief element in his training, however, down to the 
date in his life at which we have now arrived, was undoubt- 
edly the influence of his father and, still more, of his mother. 
The father died when young Calhoun was but fourteen, but 
left an impress on the boy, which he seems never to have for- 
gotten, and he always expressed himself 7 as deeply sensible 
of the influence of his parents. The father seems to have 
been a man of exemplary virtue, and of very strong character, 
with many of the traits of his Scotch-Irish ancestry. And the 
mother, too, was a woman of mark. Tall and stately, accord- 
ing to Col. Starke, she left to her descendants the memory of 
many virtues. And to this he adds, on the authority of the 
already mentioned James Edward Calhoun, who had seen her 
in his early years, that " she was a great manager. She 
taught her son John how to administer the affairs of a planta- 
tion." In still another place the same writer adds 8 that " he 
was taught to regard the Bible as a sacred book, to reverence 
God, to obey his parents, to do justice to all. He was a pro- 
foundly devout man without being religious, and often ex- 
pressed himself as having ' unshaken confidence in the provi- 
dence of God.' " We shall find all this fully borne out by his 
history in the years now but a little way ahead of us, how- 
ever much the rather Calvinistic creed he once accepted may 
have been shaken in later life. Both his parents were Presby- 
terians, 9 and probably strict ones. 

A chief purpose of biography is to enable us to understand 
the mental make-up and growth of the opinions of its sub- 
ject, so let us stop here and try to realize the influence that 
Calhoun's early surroundings may be supposed to have had 
upon him. He grew up in an outlying district, far from the 
busy haunts of men, where government was not a conspicuous 
quantity. The federal power, so little to be seen in any part 

7 Senator Butler in eulogium upon Calhoun, 
s " Sketch," p. 77. 

Biographical sketch reprinted from the " U. S. Telegraph " in the 
" Charleston Mercury," May io, 1831. 



EARLY YEARS '55 

of the country at that time, was of course practically non-ex- 
istent in upper South Carolina until Calhoun's youth, or man- 
hood, and the affairs of the State were managed in such a way 
as to give those living on the frontier a thorough dread of 
being controlled by any government at a distance, which they 
did not themselves select. 

South Carolina was governed by an aristocracy composed 
of the large planters in the lowlands and of leading men in 
their one city of importance, 10 and of course these managed 
public affairs generally in their own interest. Gerrymander- 
ing the State in order to continue their power, — long before 
that word was invented, — they entirely controlled its des- 
tinies ; and those living in the upper parts, toward the frontier, 
found it impossible to secure such legislation as they needed. 
They came thus to be a people by themselves, and it has been 
said u with truth that between the two great divisions of the 
State in these early days, " there were no ties of consanguinity, 
no identity of history, traditions or experience, no religious 
affinities, no personal acquaintance, no commercial relation." 
The uplanders felt strongly the injustice of the state of af- 
fairs forced upon them by the far-off lowlanders, under a gov- 
ernment nominally for the benefit of all, but from which in 
reality the first-named could secure but little of what they 
wanted. 

One other fact must be emphasized. South Carolina was a 
community rather apart from the rest of the United States. 

10 James H. Hammond, for many years so prominent in South Carolina, 
wrote in his " Diary " on December 27, 1850 : " The Government of So. Car. 
is that of an aristocracy. When a Colony many families arose in the Low 
Country who became very rich and were highly educated. They were real 
noblemen & ruled the Colony and the State — the latter entirely until about 
thirty years ago & to a very great extent to the present moment. Our 
legislature has all power. The Executive has none. The people have none 
beyond electing members of the Legislature — a power very negligently 
exercised from time immemorial. The Legislature governs and the old 
families ruled the Legislature. The abolition of primogeniture in 1790 
was a severe blow to them. Extravagant, bad managers & degenerating 
fast, they have been tottering with the death of every one who was in 
active life or at least had his character formed in the last century or the 
first fifteen years of this." Hammond Papers in Library of Congress. 

11 " Transportation in South Carolina," by W. L. Trenholm in "Hand- 
Book of South Carolina," p. 616, quoted in Hammond's " The Cotton In- 
dustry in the United States," p. 114. 



56 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

To the growth of this feeling, many causes contributed, among 
which may be mentioned its great distance from the more north- 
ern parts of the country and its lack of easy communication 
with that region. The centralization of the functions of gov- 
ernment, too, in the powerful classes in and near Charleston 
contributed largely to the growth of "a remarkable senti- 
ment of compactness and self-reliance." The division be- 
tween the settlers in the hill-country and those on the coastal 
plains was very marked; but, none the less, the people of the 
State in general came in time, — and indeed early, — to feel 
that South Carolina was their home, their country, the na- 
tion to which they owed allegiance. This feeling was wide- 
spread throughout the whole United States in our early days, 
and probably letters of nearly all the leading men in every 
one of the thirteen original States could be cited, in which 
they write of their State as their " country." 

The people of South Carolina were, however, by no means 
a unit on the question of the adoption of the proposed Federal 
Constitution in 1788. The two great divisions stood here once 
more in direct opposition to each other. The governing 
classes strongly favored the instrument, and the delegation 
from Charleston voted unanimously to call a convention with 
power to ratify. But far different was the feeling of the up- 
country people. These " outlanders " felt that they knew al- 
ready the ill effects of a government at less than two hundred 
miles distance, in which their delegation was but a minority; 
and they dreaded with a deep dread the thought of establish- 
ing over themselves another government at a far greater dis- 
tance, in which their voice might be still more completely 
smothered. 

The opposition to the United States Constitution in South 
Carolina came, therefore, almost entirely from the people of 
the back-country and was among them very general. Patrick 
Calhoun, it has been seen, opposed the instrument on the 
ground that " it permitted other people than those of South 
Carolina to tax the people of South Carolina and thus al- 
lowed taxation without representation, which was a violation 
of the fundamental principle of the Revolutionary struggle." 



EARLY YEARS 57 

In this instance, again, however, when the vote came to be 
taken, Patrick Calhoun and his neighbors of the up-country 
found themselves defeated by the faraway lowlanders. 12 

All this happened, of course, at a time when John Cald- 
well Calhoun was not yet seven years old and can have made 
little impression upon him; but its echo must have reached 
his ears later and had its effect as he came to more mature 
age. Much knowledge and many beliefs are imbibed at the 
paternal table, and Calhoun doubtless heard from his father 
facts and opinions tending to emphasize the importance of the 
State and to argue its sovereign rights as a nation. The sur- 
rounding circumstances and his father's action in regard to 
the Constitution would most naturally have led to discussion 
as to what would have been the condition of South Carolina 
had she refused to ratify; and who would then have ques- 
tioned but that she would have been a sovereign and inde- 
pendent community ? 

The young Calhoun grew up close enough to that day to 
realize thoroughly that the federal government had been de- 
pendent for its very existence upon the voluntary ratification 
of the requisite number of separate States, and to know, too, 
with what breathless anxiety the advocates of the plan had 
awaited the assent of one State after another. In his early 
years the States were, beyond doubt, the primordial, essential, 
governmental agency, and the newly-created federal govern- 
ment merely their derivative, — a creation they might well have 
refused to call into being. We live so far from that day, and 
the stupendous events of half a century ago have resulted in 
such a growth of federal activity, that we have forgotten all 
these facts and the then current beliefs upon the subject; but 
the student of history knows them and is apparently coming 
to recognize the great strength they afford to the arguments of 
the States' Rights school of our public men. This view cannot 
be argued here, and my only purpose is to call attention to 

12 On the condition of affairs in South Carolina about the time of the 
adoption of the constitution, see article on " The South Carolina Federal- 
ists," by Ulrich B. Phillips, in the "American Historical Review," Vol. 
XIV (April, 1909), pp. 529-543. As to Patrick Calhoun's action, see Cal- 
houn's " Autobiography." 



58 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

how strongly the facts mentioned probably influenced the mind 
of Calhoun in his early days. Impressions made at that time 
doubtless aided to guide his pen many years later when draft- 
ing some of his resolutions as to the nature of the State and 
federal governments. 

Another one of the circumstances surrounding his early 
years must be mentioned. When Calhoun's mind began to de- 
velop, — even, indeed, when his eyes first opened in the 
world, — he found himself in a slave community. A very in- 
ferior race was held in bondage by that race to which he be- 
longed. The subject people had but few rights, were forced 
to work at the command of their white owners, were punished 
by their masters, and were kept strictly under the control of the 
white people. Nothing could be more striking than the es- 
sential superiority of those masterful whites to the absolutely 
ignorant and almost barbarous blacks. In his own home, pre- 
sided over by his father and mother, he found this system at 
the earliest date he could possibly remember, and he could 
hardly think very ill of it, without first ceasing to accord to 
his parents' opinion the respect that almost all children render. 

This was the case throughout the whole South down to 
1865; but it was perhaps even more striking in these early 
days. Among the slaves on the Calhoun place, we are told 
that at least one (Adam) was a native of Africa and had been 
imported thence to this country. Of course, this had been done 
in gross violence and wrong, but there was another point to 
be considered here ; and the Southern view is absolutely sound : 
that by his seizure and the bringing of him to America that 
poor black had been rescued from a cruel and savage bar- 
barism, — and possibly slavery, — beyond measure harder to 
endure than any ill of the slavery he could meet in this coun- 
try. He was in truth vastly bettered by the wrong done him, 
and those who think upon the subject are coming to recognize 
as true the view always maintained by the South, — that the 
black race owes a heavy debt to the Southern people for " the 
immense amount of help rendered the Negro during the pe- 
riod he was a slave." 13 

i s Booker T. Washington in " Tuskegee Normal Institute Annual Re- 



EARLY YEARS 59 

All these ideas and many more of the same general character 
must have been trite among Southerners at that date, as they 
were to later generations ; and doubtless John Caldwell Cal- 
houn both heard discussions in which such views were brought 
out and unconsciously imbibed those views from the logic of 
the surrounding circumstances. And, as he grew older, he 
could not have failed to be deeply impressed with the inherent 
and probably ineradicable incapacity of the blacks. Their in- 
feriority was and is so painfully evident as not to require 
emphasis here, and its ineradicable nature is strongly argued 
by the absolute blank that the history of the negro race pre- 
sents. The white people and others have repeatedly evolved a 
civilization within themselves. Why has the negro never done 
so, nor even been able, — when separated from the superior 
race, — to hold the veneering that had been acquired by dint 
of long contact with a capable people? 

Calhoun's lifelong views cannot but have been profoundly 
influenced by all these thoughts. His early years fell, too, in a 
time when slavery had acquired little, if any, of the harsh- 
ness that marked it in some instances later; nor were the ill 
effects of the system upon the white people then conspicuous. 
Dwelling in a border-land, the idea of the whites not work- 
ing does not seem yet to have arisen, and despite the rather 
large possessions of Patrick Calhoun, it is clear that hard work 
was the rule on his farm. Col. Starke writes that no idea 
whatsoever of the degradation of manual labor (in his opinion 
one of the worst of the later ill effects of slavery upon the 
whites) had grown up in Patrick Calhoun's family, and he had 
himself often seen the grandsons following the plough. He 
tells us, too, that Sawney, — the son of Adam and the play- 
mate of the Calhoun boys, — used to delight in his old age 
to tell all inquirers at great length what he knew of John 
Caldwell Calhoun. They had hunted and fished together, 
it seems, and Sawney would add : " We worked in the field, 
and many's the times in the br'ilin' sun me and Mars John 
has plowed together." 14 

port," 1001, quoted in Alfred Holt Stone's " Studies in the American Race 
Problem," p. 89. 
14 Calhoun told John Quincy Adams in 1820 that both he and his father 



60 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

All this was long before the general introduction of the over- 
seer, to whose advent and the consequent quasi absentee land- 
lordism may probably be attributed many of the harsh condi- 
tions of the slavery of later times. The system at that early 
day was a very different institution, as to which I shall quote 
the words of the oft-cited Col. Starke, a native of the Calhoun 
region in South Carolina, who tells us here what he saw 
with his own eyes in this very region, and what we know 
from other sources to be a true picture. He writes : 

The institution of slavery, the old plantation life, is gone. Soon 
all recollection of it will be lost. In order to enable the reader 
to understand something of that life, we shall give a brief ac- 
count of what fell under our notice. We shall present no imag- 
inary picture. 

Not far from the Calhoun settlement lived a man who had 
ridden with Sumter in the old war for liberty. During a long 
and active life he managed the business of the plantation himself. 
Towards the close of his life he consented to try an overseer, 
but in every case some difficulty soon arose between the middle- 
man -and the negroes, in which the old planter invariably took 
sides with the latter, and rid himself of the proxy. On rainy 
days the negro women spun raw cotton into yarn, which was 
woven by his own weaver into summer goods, to be cut out by a 
seamstress, and made by the other women, assisted by her, into 
clothing for the " people." The sheep were shorn, and the wool 
treated in the same fashion for winter clothing. The hides of 
cattle eaten on the place were tanned into leather and made 
into shoes by his own shoemaker. He had his own carpenters, 
wheelwright, and blacksmiths, and besides cattle and sheep the 
old planter raised his own stock of horses and mules. He grew 
his own wheat for flour, besides raising other small grain, com 
and cotton. He distilled his own brandy from peaches and sweet- 
ened it with honey manufactured by his own bees. His negroes 

had often held the plough ; but, according to Adams, then went on to 
draw a distinction in regard to labor, such as is very hard for us to-day 
to understand. See post, pp. 259, 260. John Quincy Adams's " Memoirs," 
Vol. V, p. 10. Macon, too, worked regularly with his slaves, Benton's 
"Thirty Years' View," Vol. I, p. 117, William E. Dodd's "Nathaniel 
Macon," pp. 89, 90; and Jefferson Davis, when he started his Mississippi 
plantation, " worked with his own hands and directed personally and 
through his trusty foreman . . . the labor of the fields," William E. 
Dodd's " Jefferson Davis," p. 43. 



EARLY YEARS 61 

were well fed and clothed, carefully attended to in sickness, 
virtually free in old age, and supported in comfort till their death. 
The moral law against adultery was sternly enforced upon the 
place, and no divorce allowed. His people were encouraged 
to enjoy themselves in all reasonable ways. They went to a 
Methodist Church in the neighborhood on Sunday, and had be- 
sides a preacher of their own, raised on the place. The young 
were supplied with necessary fiddling and dancing. I was pres- 
ent when he died, and heard him say to his son that he would 
leave him a property honestly made and not burdened with a 
dollar of indebtedness. His family and friends were gathered 
about his bedside when the time had come for him to go. Hav- 
ing taken leave of his friends, he ordered his negro laborers 
to be summoned from the field to take farewell of him. When 
they arrived he was speechless and motionless, but sensible of all 
that was occurring, as could be seen from his look of intelligence. 
One by one the negroes entered the apartment, and filing by him 
in succession took each in turn the limp hand of their dying 
master, and affectionately pressing it for a moment, thanked him 
for his goodness, commended him to God, and bade him farewell. 

Finally, in regard to these early years of Calhoun, at- 
tention must be called to one other fact, which is borne upon 
by Col. Starke, is the usual Southern view about life on a 
plantation, and which beyond doubt has a great deal of truth 
in it. This author says : 

The faithful discharge of the duties of the proprietor of a plan- 
tation in former times demanded administrative as well as moral 
qualities of a high order. There never was a better school for 
the education of statesmen than the administration of a South- 
ern plantation under the former regime. A well-governed plan- 
tation was a well-ordered little independent state. Surrounded 
with such environments, Calhoun grew up at this school. 

If the future Senator and greatest of Southern leaders lacked 
early tuition, he had at least from an early age that better 
instructor, ceaseless responsibility, and was persistently called 
upon to exercise watchfulness as to the thousand details of the 
difficult microcosm under his care. 



CHAPTER III 

EDUCATION 

The Turning Point — Waddel's School — College Life at Yale 

— Impressions. 

The great change in Calhoun's life, — which resulted in 
giving him to public affairs for which so few are well fitted, 
instead of wasting his remarkable capacities in agriculture to 
which thousands of others are as well suited as he was, — 
came about during the early part of his nineteenth year. Of 
course, even otherwise he might have entered public life in 
some way; but, so far as we can see, the incident referred 
to was the sole cause that led to his great career. It is said 
by Col. Starke on the authority of James Edward Calhoun 
that, as he grew toward maturity, " a feeling manifested it- 
self among the people in remarks that John C. Calhoun ought 
to be educated." But this statement is not borne out by the 
" Autobiography," and it is impossible to know whether the 
neighbors really had any part in bringing about the change. 

The only reliable information on this point is the following 
from Calhoun's own account : 

. . . About this time, an incident occurred which turned his 
after life. His second brother, James, who had been placed at 
a counting-house in Charleston, returned to spend the summer 
of 1800 at home. John had determined to become a planter; but 
James, objecting to this, strongly urged him to acquire a good 
education and pursue one of the learned professions. He re- 
plied that he was not averse to the course advised, but there 
were two difficulties in the way : one was to obtain the assent of 
his mother, without which he could not think of leaving her, 
and the other was the want of means. He said his property was 
small and his resolution fixed : he would rather be a planter than 
a half-informed physician or lawyer. With this determination, he 

62 



EDUCATION 63 

could not bring his mind to select either without ample prepara- 
tion ; but if the consent of his mother should be freely given, and 
he (James) thought he could so manage his property as to keep 
him in funds for seven years of study preparatory to entering his 
profession, he would leave home and commence his education the 
next week. His mother and brother agreeing to his condition, 
he accordingly left home the next week for Dr. Waddel's, who 
had married again and resumed his academy in Columbia county, 
Georgia. 

It was in June of 1800 that this event happened, and from 
that time on until his death, half a century later, Calhoun's 
career was brilliant at every stage. The devotion of the 
mother thus willing to part with her son for his good, and the 
unselfishness of the brothers, who doubtless made considerable 
pecuniary sacrifices for his benefit, need to be mentioned in 
passing. At one time during his years of study, in 1806, it 
seems that James Calhoun found the burden heavy to carry 
and wanted him to come home. On April 13th of that year, 
Calhoun wrote from Litchfield that his brother James would 
be there in the latter part of June and " is desirous of my re- 
turning with him ; but I have not yet gave * him an answer. 
However, as the course of lectures will not conclude till the 
fall, I do not think it probable I shall." There can be little 
doubt that lack of money was the cause for this wish on the 
part of the brother, and it was only about three months later 
that the law-student is to be found asking a loan. 2 

Returning thus for a second time to Dr. Waddel's school, 
it may be assumed that Calhoun applied himself assiduously 
to work, or he could never have made the rapid progress 
he did make. He himself writes that he may be said to 
have commenced his education at this time, while Starke adds 

1 I transcribe from Prof. Jameson's " Calhoun Correspondence " precisely 
as the letters are there printed, down to and including those ending on 
p. 08 post. After that time I have omitted mere errors of spelling. A 
good many of these, and some of grammar, occur in the printed " Cor- 
respondence," but probably not a few are owing to the difficulty of read- 
ing Calhoun's handwriting, and he had some strange indifference in the 
matter. Within a few lines the same word will be found correctly and 
again incorrectly spelled. Misspelling and pet errors of grammar are 
faults common enough to-day as well as in Calhoun's time. 

2 Letter to Mrs. Colhoun, dated July 3, 1806. 



64 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

that he then " opened for the first time a Latin grammar." 
We shall soon see where he stood two years later. 

N t very much has survived in regard to the famous W'addel 
school of the South. At the time of Calhoun's short stay 
as a boy in 1705. it was situated near the small town of 
Appling, in the present Columbia County, Georgia, not far 
from the Savannah River, and at the date of his second at- 
tendance, in 1S00. Calhoun himself has just been quoted to 
the effect that it was still in Columbia Countv. Georgia. In 
1S04 it was removed to Wellington in Abbeville County. South 
Carolina, and was there maintained for many years by Mr. 
Waddel. the father, and later by his sons. 3 It lived long 
in the memory of Southern men as " the Wellington Academv." 
At this, its last and most enduring situation, the school was 
upon a high and healthy ridge between the Savannah and 
Little Rivers, not far from the region where the members of 
the Calhoun family had settled. John C. Calhoun also lived 
near by during some years oi his early manhood. The latter 
long afterward wrote as follows of Dr. Waddel as a teacher. 4 

In that character, he stands almost unrivaled. He may be 
justly considered as the father of classical education in the upper 
country of South Carolina and Georgia. His excellence in that 
character depended not so much on extensive or profound learn- 
ing as a felicitous combination of qualities for the government of 
boys and communicating to them what he knew. He was par- 
:!arly successful in exciting emulation amongst them, and 
in obtaining the good will of all except the worthless. The 
best evidence of his high quali: - a teacher is his success. 

ong his pupils are to be found a large part of the eminent 
men in this State and Georgia. In this State it is sufficient to 

3 1 have depended in the main for detail? as to Waddel's school on 
Co!; story of Higher Education in South Carolina " 

(Bureau of Education. Circular of Information, ? 1888), pp. 38, 

39. Tr : school was in 1800 at " V 

meaning in Georgia, and I -rms to be borne out by Calhoun's state- 

Vienna was, however, in a region very Etl j 
there was another Vienna in Abbeville County. 
South Carolina ngton. As to the mode of life at the school 

see also \V. T. Grays-: - :>f James Louis Petigru." pp. _ 15 

•Quoted in Col. S h. pp. -S. 70, from Sprague's " Anr 

of t rican F '.'■' | - See also Meriwether's " Hig 

on in South Carolina." 



EDUCATION 65 

name McDuffie, Legare, Petigru, and my colleague Butler. To 
these many others of distinction might be added. His pupils 
in Georgia who have distinguished themselves are numerous. 
In the list are to be found the names of William H. Crawford, 
Longstreet, etc. It is in his character of a teacher especially, 
that he will long be remembered as a benefactor of the country. 

There seems to be no record left of the school as it was 
in Calhoun's day at its earlier homes, but even at Wellington 
it was plain indeed. Log-houses took the place of the lux- 
urious dormitories of modern times. These shanties varied 
in size from six to sixteen feet square, and fronted on a sort 
of street shaded by majestic oaks, while at the head of the 
street stood a larger log-house divided into two rooms, one 
of which was intended for the smaller boys, while the other 
was used for recitation, for prayers, and for all general pur- 
poses. It was without seats, and was large enough to hold 
one hundred and fifty boys standing erect. " Under the wide- 
spreading branches in summer," we are told, " and in their 
huts in winter, the students diligently studied, changing their 
occupation at the sound of the horn, and repairing to the 
house for recitation when called for by the name of ' the 
Virgil class, the Homer class,' or by the name of the author 
they were studying. . . . Such was the spirit (of study) 
among them that drones were hardly tolerated at all. Their 
life was simple and industrious, and their food was Spartan 
in its plainness — corn-bread and bacon. Instead of gas and 
students' lamps, they pored over the lessons by the aid of 
pine torches. At the sound of the horn, they retired to bed. 
. . . They rose at dawn, and resumed their studies." 

To this may be added from other sources a few words bear- 
ing more directly on Calhoun's own life at the school. Thus, 
one authority 5 writes: " It is related of him by his school- 
mates, that while at Waddel's Academy, he had an impedi- 
ment or hesitancy in his speech, which, added to his unusual 
diffidence, rendered his prospects of eminence as a speaker 

5 " Measures not Men : Illustrated by some remarks upon the public 
conduct and character of John C. Calhoun,'' by a Citizen of New York. 
New York, 1823. The pamphlet being anonymous, its statements must of 
course be received with caution. 



66 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

quite unflattering." And Col. Starke, who writes that he 
himself was, of course at a later date, " long an inmate of 
Moses Waddel's family and a pupil at the Wellington Acad- 
emy," gives an account of the old Wellington school as the 
boys of his day had received it from tradition. His account 
agrees in the main with what has been already said of the 
school in general, but adds certain information as to a particu- 
lar point that is interesting in view of Calhoun's later life. 
After telling us that it was a classical school and quite devoid 
of the modern multiplicity of studies, he writes that " the 
debating club on Friday afternoons was an important institu- 
tion and regarded by the teacher as a very necessary part of 
his scholastic system, for to converse and speak in public were 
esteemed necessary accomplishments to Southern youths." A 
valuable training, indeed, for one whose then unknown destiny 
it was to debate in later years with Clay and Webster and the 
other giants of his time ! 

In the short space of two years at this school the raw country 
boy, who started in 1800 with almost none of the foundations 
of learning but had zeal and inborn abilities of a most unusual 
order, entered in 1802 the Junior class at Yale, then as now 
one of the leading institutions of learning in the country. He 
had begun his education at Waddel's school and first opened a 
Latin grammar only some two or three months in advance of 
the time when his Yale classmates of 1802 were entering upon 
their college life as freshmen, after possibly ten or twelve years 
of preparatory work. 

He seems early in college life to have found himself quite 
the equal of his classmates. Asked once in later years when 
the thought first came into his mind of his superiority to ordi- 
nary men, he smiled and then answered as follows : 

" I went on to Yale College, fresh from the backwoods. 
My opportunities for learning had been very limited. I had 
a high opinion of the New England system of education. My 
first recitation was in mathematics, and we had been told to 
fetch our slates into the class-room. On taking our seats the 
professor proceeded to propound certain arithmetical ques- 

e " Sketch," pp. 79, 80. 



EDUCATION 67 

tions to us. I found no difficulty in working out the first, and 
on looking about me was surprised to find the others busy 
with their slates. The professor noticing my movement asked 
me if I had got the answer, and I handed him my slate. The 
answer proved to be correct. The same thing occurred every 
time. On returning to my apartment I felt gratified. This is, 
perhaps, sir, the best answer I can give to your question." 7 

Calhoun tells us in the " Autobiography " that he was highly 
esteemed by Dr. Dwight. the then president of the college, de- 
spite their wide dififerences in politics. Calhoun came up from 
the South, a Republican, like most of his home neighbors, and 
full of all the theories of popular rights supported by them 
and the Jeffersonians in general. To Dwight, on the other 
hand, Jefferson and all his beliefs were a horrid nightmare. 
Dwight was indeed among the most ultra of the New Eng- 
land Federalists of that day, when party feeling ran so high 
that in Connecticut ostracism was the probable result of espous- 
ing the Republican cause. More than one person suffered from 
the bitterness of this feeling, and otherwise harmless pro- 
fessors had found the confines of Yale College far too warm 
for them to live in. 

But Calhoun came from afar and was barely entering man- 
hood, so his views were possibly less harmful, and the Presi- 
dent seems even to have drawn him out. The " Autobiog- 
raphy " has the following story upon this point : 

The doctor [Dwight] was an ardent Federalist, and Mr. Cal- 
houn was one of a very few, in a class of more than seventy, 
who had the firmness openly to avow and maintain the opinions 
of the Republican party, and, among others, that the people were 
the only legitimate source of political power. Dr. Dwight en- 
tertained a different opinion. In a recitation during the senior 
year, on the Chapter on Politics in Paley's Moral Philosophy, 
the doctor, with the intention of eliciting his opinion, pro- 
pounded to Mr. Calhoun the question, as to the legitimate source 

7 Col. Starke's " Sketch," p. 80. I at first supposed that this superiority 
of Calhoun was in reality owing in great part to his age (22 years at 
graduation), but inquiry developed the fact that of the 60 members 
of his class, whose ages are known (of 6 there are no details on this 
point), as many as 24 were 22 or older. T am indebted to Mr. Edwin 
Rogers Embree, Alumni Registrar of Yale, for these facts. 



68 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

of power. He did not decline an open and direct avowal of his 
opinion. A discussion ensued between them, which exhausted 
the time allotted for the recitation, and in which the pupil main- 
tained his opinions with such vigor of argument and success 
as to elicit from his distinguished teacher the declaration, 8 in 
speaking of him to a friend, that "the young man had talent 
enough to be President of the United States," which he ac- 
companied by a prediction that he would one day attain that sta- 
tion. 

Calhoun graduated with distinction on September 12, 1804, 
but little more than four years after the date at which he had 
really begun his education. Among his classmates were John 
M. Felder and Micah Sterling from South Carolina, with both 
of whom we shall find him associated in after years; as well 
as the following, who all came in time to occupy positions of 
prominence in some department of life : Christopher E. Gads- 
den was Bishop of South Carolina; John Gadsden, Attorney 
General of South Carolina; John P. Hampton, Judge of the 
Supreme Court of Mississippi, and Bennett Tyler, President of 
Dartmouth College and later President of the Theological 
Seminary at East Windsor Hill. 

In the latter part of August, 1804, Calhoun had a serious 
illness which " well-nigh put an end " to his life. He hoped 
in the end of the month to be well enough by commencement 
" to realize the enjoyments and participate in the labor of 
that Day," 9 but such was not the case, and he was not even 
able to be present. He had been assigned to deliver an Eng- 

8 This opinion of Dwight is mentioned by numerous other authors. 
The writing of earliest date to which I have heen ahle to trace it is the 
pamphlet of 1823 cited shortly above and called " Measures not Men, 
&c, &c. Perhaps another version of this story should be mentioned here, 
but it seems to be based on nothing but a loose newspaper-clipping. Ac- 
cording to this, Dwight's words were, " Young man, your talents are of a 
high order and might justify you for any station, but I deeply regret that 
you do not love sound principles better than sophistry — you seem to 
possess a most unfortunate bias towards error." "Letter of Petigru to 
Legare," dated December 17, 18.36. and enclosing such a newspaper-cut- 
ting. "The Life and Times of James L. Petigru." by Joseph Blyth 
Allston in the "Charleston Sunday News," January 21 to June 17, 1900: 
see issue of June 17. The story ought to be reproduced here, I feel, but 
is probably apocryphal. 

9 Letter to Mrs. Floride Colhoun of August 29. 1804, and to Alexander 
Noble of Oct. 15, 1804. See also the "Autobiography." 



EDUCATION 69 

lish oration and had selected as his thesis " The qualifications 
necessary to constitute a perfect statesman," but this paper, 
interesting as it would be to-day in the light of his subsequent 
career, has never seen the light of day. 

Thus graduated, and with the degree of bachelor of arts 
in his pocket written in a language of which but four years 
earlier he had not known the first rudiments, the brilliant 
young South Carolinian was now a man of twenty-two and a 
half years. Before he leaves New England to go home again, 
a word must be said of a family with the members of which 
he became intimately acquainted about the close of his years 
at Yale. They had never met before, 10 despite the fact that 
they were closely related. He went South with them on this 
occasion, and the only daughter of the family, at this time a 
child of twelve, became his wife in course of time. 

Among the brothers of Patrick Calhoun to come over from 
Ireland was one Ezekiel, who married a Miss Ewing and left 
behind him among other children a son, John Ewing Calhoun, 
or, as he spelled the name, Colhoun. John Ewing Colhoun 
has already been mentioned in these pages as having gone 
to Charlestown from the upper country about 1776 with the 
intention of studying law. Instead of this, however, he en- 
listed as a private in Colonel Charles Drayton's Volunteer 
Company and was not admitted to the bar until 1783. On 
October 8, 1786, he married Floride Bonneau, who was, ac- 
cording to Col. Starke's " Sketch," " a low-country heiress of 
French extraction [and whose family] lived at Bonneau's 
Ferry on Cooper River, about twenty miles above Charleston." 
The same authority tells us that she was the owner of a rice- 
plantation and of lands in the upper country; and according 
to a newspaper marriage-notice u of the time she was " an 

10 Letter to Mrs. Floride Colhoun, dated June 12, 1810. 

11 The Charleston " Morning Post and Daily Advertiser " of Monday, 
Octoher 9, 1786, quoted in Mr. Salley's "The Calhoun Family of South 
Carolina," printed in " The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical 
Magazine," Vol. VII (1906), p. 154, speaks of the marriage as having 
occurred on October 8, and again " yesterday." This fixes it on a Sun- 
day. The facts in the text in regard to the family of John Ewing 
Colhoun and his career in general are taken from Mr. Salley's article, pp. 
I 53> !54» and from other publications in the same magazine, Vol. I, pp. 
134, 135, 162, 186, 187. See also, ante, p. 43. 



7 o LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

agreeable young lady, with every accomplishment to make 
the married state happy." Whatever we, who live in the 
last degree of newspaper gossip as to private life, may think 
of the taste of this sort of announcement by public prints it 
was in the particular case probably an accurate judgment, and 
we shall find Mrs. Colhoun kind and attentive in the highest 
degree to her husband's cousin in his sickness at Yale as well 
as during all her later years. 

John Ewing Colhoun was a man of note in his day, served 
in the Legislature and Privy Council of South Carolina, and 
was United States Senator from that State from March 4, 
1 80 1, until his death on October 26, 1802. He had been elected 
to the Senate as a Republican over the prior incumbent, Jacob 
Read, by the close vote of 75 to 73. After his death, his 
widow, a woman of means, was in the habit of at least often 
spending the summers, — the unhealthy season at her home, 

— in Newport, Rhode Island, and she passed also at least two 
winters (those of 1 805-1 806 and of 1806- 1807) in that favor- 
ite northern resort of Southerners. 12 It may possibly be that 
this was partly for the advancement of the education of her 
children. She had two sons, James Edward (so often quoted 
by Col. Starke) and John Ewing, and one daughter, Floride 
Bonneau Colhoun, who was born 13 February 15, 1792, and 
was thus ten years younger than her future husband. 

It seems that Mrs. Colhoun, being at Newport in the sum- 
mer of 1804 and hearing in some way of the illness of her 
husband's first cousin, John Caldwell, wrote in the latter part 
of August inviting him to come and stay with her in Newport. 
Indeed, she had at some prior date sent a like verbal invita- 
tion by a kinsman named Noble, but Calhoun did not then 
know where she was. To her letter he replied on August 29th, 
saying that he would gladly visit her after commencement, 
which was to be on September 12. In the end of September, 

— probably after he had sufficiently recovered from his illness, 

— he accordingly went to Newport and stayed with Mrs. Col- 

12 "Calhoun Correspondence," Letters to Mrs. Floride Colhoun, passim, 

93-123. 

18 Mr. Salley's article, ut ante, p. 154. 



EDUCATION 71 

houn until the latter part of October or very possibly until 
the middle of November, when he and the Colhoun family 
sailed South on the same vessel. 

Some of Calhoun's impressions of the time are interesting. 
As he wrote to Alexander Noble from that place on October 
15, 1804: 

Newport is quite a pleasant place, but it has rather an old ap- 
pearance which gives it a somewhat melancholy aspect. I have 
found no part of New England more agreeable than the island 
of Rhode Island. Agreeably situated, well cultivated and pos- 
sessed of a good soil and delightful climate, it seems to possess 
all that can contribute to the pleasure of man. But as to the 
civil situation of this State and its manners, customs, moral and 
religious character, it seems much inferior, as far as my informa- 
tion extends, to every other part of New England. To-morrow 
I set off in company with your aunt 14 for Boston. We expect 
to make a short stay, not more perhaps than a week. I expect 
to return to Carolina by water, and in the same vessel with your 
Aunt and family. We do not expect to sail before the 10th or 
12th of next month, as we apprehend from accounts received from 
Charleston, that it would be dangerous to be there before the mid- 
dle of November. 

14 Mrs. Colhoun was certainly not strictly Alexander Noble's aunt, and 
the word must have been employed in the loose sense in which it often 
was used. I presume Noble was a descendant of Sarah Calhoun, daughter 
to John C. Calhoun's uncle William. She married one E. P. Noble of 
Texas (Col. Starke's "Sketch," foot-note to p. 78). But it is possible 
he was a descendant of the immigrant Patrick's sister, Mary, who mar- 
ried one John Noble (Mr. Salley's "Calhoun Family," ut ante, p. 83). In 
either case, he and Mrs. Colhoun's husband were cousins in some degree. 



CHAPTER IV 

FURTHER TRAINING 

Studies Law — The Litchfield Law School — Growth of 

Opinion. 

Arriving, doubtless, in Charleston, it may be surmised that 
Calhoun soon went up to the neighborhood of Abbeville to live 
and to make further progress in his education. A little more 
than four years of the term of seven he had appointed were 
gone, and a course of study in law still lay ahead of him. 
His mother had died about the time he went to Yale in 1802 1 
and it seems that the management of his private affairs was 
in the hands of his brother James. 2 Indeed, I presume it is 
likely that the family estate was still managed as a whole. He 
spent the ensuing winter of 1805 in Abbeville, studying law 
with George Bowie, " an eminent and leading lawyer on the 
Western Circuit," who is said to have been the first member 
of his profession to reside in Abbeville. 3 

Calhoun had evidently made up his mind from the start 
to secure the best education, and he came to the conclusion to 
take a course at the then famous law school maintained at 
Litchfield, Connecticut, by Judge Tapping Reeve, of the Con- 
necticut Superior Court, and James Gould. This school was 
known far and wide and was the first institution in the United 
States at which law was taught to established classes by a 
system of lectures. It was attended by students from various 
parts of the country and resorted to by Southerners to no little 

iThis is the time of her death distinctly asserted by Col. Starke 
("Sketch," p. 80). Curiously enough, Calhoun himself once wrote that 
his mother died when he was sixteen years old (i.e., in 1708). Letter to 
John Rodgers printed in " Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 
Vol. VII (1901), p. 328. 

2 Letter to Mrs. Floride Colhoun of July 3, 1806. 

» J. B. O'Neall's " Bench and Bar," &c, Vol. II, p. 207. 

72 



FURTHER TRAINING 73 

extent. Calhoun found some of his home acquaintance already 
there upon his arrival. 

The journey North was made by him under most favorable 
auspices. Mrs. Floride Colhoun, whose acquaintance, it has 
been shown, he had made at New Haven the preceding 
autumn, was this year going North by land in her own car- 
riage, and I think it may be safely assumed that she had been 
greatly attracted by the young student or she would hardly 
have asked him, as she did, to go with her on this long jour- 
ney, upon which she took her three children and we can 
only guess how many servants and slaves as well. Travel 
of this kind in one's own carriage was common enough in 
that day for those who had the fortune to render it possible, 
and it must have been an admirable education as to everything 
appertaining to the country traversed. Col. Starke is our chief 
informant as to this event in Calhoun's career, and he in turn 
derived his information from James Edward Colhoun, one 
of the hostess' sons, who still remembered the trip in very 
advanced life. Col. Starke writes: 

The wealthy widow must have made a stir in the little vil- 
lage [Abbeville] * as she passed through it in her family coach, 
drawn by four splendid gray horses, with the reins held by an 
English coachman in full livery. The widow took with her 
Floride, then in her thirteenth year, and her sons John and James. 
At the request of John Caldwell, for whom she had learned to 
feel a warm motherly regard mixed with admiration, the widow 
consented to make a detour and stop a day or two at Charlottes- 
ville, in Virginia. The young Carolina Republican was anxious 
to see Mr. Jefferson, then on a visit (he was President at the 
time) to Monticello. 

" Cousin John," said my informant, " went out to Monticello 
to call upon Mr. Jefferson, who must have been pleased with him, 
as he detained him until the following morning. The conversa- 
tion between the two men is said to have lasted until midnight, 
which was an unusual occurrence with Mr. Jefferson. I remem- 
ber hearing that Mr. Jefferson, coming into town next day, spoke 

4 " Sketch," pp. 83, 84. Some doubt is possibly raised as to the fact of 
their passing through Abbeville, by a letter of Calhoun's to Mrs. Colhoun, 
dated July 3, 1806, in which he compares the then state of vegetation with 
what it was " when we left Charleston last year." 



74 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

about John C. Calhoun in a manner quite gratifying to my 
mother." 

Not much more remains to tell us of the route by which 
they travelled. They did not go through Wilmington, as 
seems to have been their original intention, and afterward 
rather congratulated themselves for having arrived at this 
conclusion, — possibly sickness developed there during the sum- 
mer. The young man wrote Mrs. Colhoun on August 12, 
1805, that here was another argument in favor of her con- 
viction that " all is for the best." They passed through Prince- 
ton, N. J., and Calhoun wrote 5 Mr. DeSaussure, his law in- 
structor of a few years hence and the future great Chancellor 
of South Carolina, an account of the latter's son at the col- 
lege, with which the far distant father was greatly pleased. 

Calhoun went on with his cousin's family to Newport; and 
in July proceeded to Litchfield, returning first to New London, 
and then going on by stage by way of Norwich and Hartford. 
On the last ride of his journey he was fortunate in having as 
a fellow-passenger his instructor to be, Judge Reeve, to whom 
he presented a letter of introduction and " found him on the 
passage open and agreeable." He arrived at his destination 
shortly before July 22, on which day he wrote to his late 
hostess giving her an account of his journey and telling her 
that " for two or three days after I left New Port, I felt much 
of that lonesome Sensation, which I believe every one experi- 
ences, after departing from those with whom he has been long 
intimate. However by mingling and conversation with others, 
I have felt it much diminished ; and by a few days application 
to studies, which to me are highly interesting, I have no doubt 
it will be entirely removed." And in an earlier part of the 
same letter he wrote: " I have every prospect of rendering 
my residence here very agreeable; and I return, I assure you, 
with much pleasure to the cultivation of Blackstone's acquaint- 



ance." 



It seems doubtful, however, whether the law ever had any 
real attraction for him, unless in these early days of its acqui- 

8 Letter to Mrs. Floride Colhoun, Sept. 26, 1805. 



FURTHER TRAINING 75 

sition, and, it may possibly be supposed, in some of its great 
underlying principles. He wrote to Mrs. Colhoun on August 
12, 1805: 

I feel myself much absorbed by the pursuit of legal knowledge 
at present. In fact, to take the course of law lectures, not as 
they usually are, but as they ought to be, I find I must devote 
almost the whole of my time to that purpose. I find Mr. Felder 8 
a faithful and cheering companion in the dry and solitary jour- 
ney through the exterior fields of law. We both console our- 
selves, that in a few years we shall acquire a pretty thorough 
knowledge of our profession; and then our time shall be more 
at our own disposals. Perhaps this is but a pleasant dream ; as 
every succeeding year comes loaded with its own peculiar cares 
and business. 

To his cousin, Andrew Pickens, also, he wrote on November 
24 of the same year: 

You do me an injustice in supposing your letters intrude on 
my studious disposition; I am not so much in love with law as 
to feel indifferent to my friends. Many things I study for the 
love of study but not so with law. I can never consider it, 
but as a task which my situation forces on me. I therefore, often 
lay it aside for the more delicious theme of the muses, or inter- 
esting pages of history; and always throw it away with joy to 
hear from my Carolina correspondents. But, I confess, from my 
aversion to law, I draw a motive to industry. It must be done, 
and the sooner the better is often my logick. 

Litchfield w r as a small town situated in the western part of 
Connecticut, north of the central line of the State and not far 
from a range of hills that approached to the dignity of moun- 
tains. It was far enough from the sea and at a sufficient ele- 
vation to afford in its northern latitude a complete change of 
climate to those who came up from the far South, and Cal- 
houn not infrequently refers to this element in his new sur- 
roundings as well as to the " very high open situation" of 

n His room-mate, John M. Felder, who had graduated with him at Yale 
in 1804, and who became in later years a prominent politician in South 
Carolina. Letter to Mrs. Colhoun of July 22, 1805. O'Neall's " Bench 
and Bar of South Carolina," Vol. II, pp. 325-336. 



76 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the district. With wide streets lined by the spacious mansions 
usual in those days, the village was situated on some of the 
great lines of traffic, and good roads, travelled regularly by 
stage-lines, passed through it. 

Some historic interest attached to Litchfield. Governor 
Wolcott, famous even among the men of Connecticut for his 
intense federalism, was a resident, and opposite his home stood 
that of Judge Reeve, the senior member of the firm maintaining 
the law school. The latter's wife was the only sister of the 
meteoric Aaron Burr, who had for a time studied law there, but 
who left this peaceful pursuit to join Arnold's romantic ex- 
pedition against Quebec. Washington had passed through the 
village more than once during the Revolution, and Lafayette 
and Rochambeau are said to have been entertained in the Reeve 
house. It is curious, too, that Harriet Beecher Stowe and her 
brother were born in Litchfield; while a short walk would 
have brought the young Southerner to the spot where John 
Brown first saw the light of day in the adjoining town. 

The students of the law-school met for lecture and reci- 
tation in a small building adjoining Mr. Gould's home. It 
was situate on North Street, and the " legends of the village " 
are said to centre about this building and one other — " the 
square-built aggressive-looking structure, which was the seat 
of Miss Sarah Pierce's no less famous Young Ladies' Semi- 
nary." 7 The two schools were very close together, and there 
was some social intercourse between them, but I find no men- 
tion of the girls' school in Calhoun's writings. 

Calhoun spent more than a year at Litchfield, and it is evi- 
dent that he devoted himself assiduously to study. He arrived 
there about July 22, 1805, and his diploma, dated July 29, 1806, 
certifies 8 that " during that period he has applied himself to 
no other regular business, and has attended diligently and 
faithfully to the study of the law." But he evidently 9 con- 

T " Sketch of James Gould," by Simeon E. Baldwin, in Wm. Draper 
Lewis's " Great American Lawyers," Vol. II, pp. 455-87- Charles Burr 
Todd's " In Olde Connecticut," pp. 188-190. Article by Charles C. Moore 
reprinted from " Law Notes," in Dwight C. Kilbourn's " Bench and Bar 
of Litchfield Co., Conn.," pp. 181-183. 

8 Quoted in Col. Starke's " Sketch," p. 84. 

• Letter to Mrs. Floride Colhoun, dated July 3, 1806. 





The Litchfield Law Schools 



Vol. I, p. 76 



FURTHER TRAINING 77 

tinued his studies and attended lectures after this date until 
August 20, at which time the school had a vacation of three 
weeks. This vacation he spent with Mrs. Colhoun at New- 
port, but was back again at Litchfield by September 11 and 
attended that fall further lectures, to which he referred as 
being a " part of the course."' 10 He wrote Mrs. Colhoun on 
that date that the lectures had commenced again, and he should 
not be able to get down to the Yale commencement. " The 
present subject," he continued, " on which the judge is lec- 
turing, is an important one ; and I think it my duty to make 
pleasure yield to interest." Precisely how long he remained 
to take these lectures cannot be ascertained. 11 

Far from home as he was, he found himself largely alone, 
but this of course helped to turn him to study. He wrote on 
September 9, 1805 : " This is rather an out of the way place; 
and, unless, it is now and then a southerner from college, we 
rarely see any one from our end of Union:" and then he 
emphasized the fact that this led to diligent work. He was in 
his twenty-fourth year when he went to Litchfield, and at the 
very beginning of his studies (July 22, 1805) he wrote of 
himself and his room-mate, John M. Felder, that " both being 
sensible of the importance of application, at our age, have 
resolved to devote our time to solid and useful studies." 

There was one other inducement to study in the little New 
England village. He came up from afar, a Republican and 
supporter of the existing administration of federal affairs while 
the bitterness felt in Connecticut against Jefferson and all his 
ilk has rarely been equalled in the annals of political hatred. 
Calhoun seems not to have been there long before he was 
aware of this fact, and he probably knew it already from his 
two years at Yale. He wrote on December 23, 1805: "I 
take little amusement; and live a very studious life. This 
place is so much agitated by party feelings, that both Mr. 

10 Ibid., April 13, 1806. 

11 Calhoun wrote (" Autobiography," p. 6) that he spent eighteen months 
at Litchfield, but the time does not seem to have been so long, as he 
writes from Charleston on December 22, 1806, to Mrs. Colhoun, after 
having gone home by land, having spent " a few weeks " at Abbeville, 
and having been in Charleston for a period that he does not specify. It 
has been already seen that he arrived at Litchfield about July 22, 1805. 



78 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Felder and myself find it prudent to form few connections 
in town. This, though somewhat disagreeable is not unfavor- 
able to our studies." 

Many years later, too, he said 12 that he had in these early 
days watched the management of public affairs in New Eng- 
land and been much struck with " the working of the odious 
party machinery " of the caucus system, and convinced that it 
would in the end supersede the authority of law and the 
Constitution. But despite the general disaffection in New Eng- 
land at that day, he is said to have " never doubted that the 
great body of citizens . . . were firmly attached to the Un- 
ion." 13 

In regard to the method of teaching at the famous school 
of Litchfield, the text has made it plain that at least much of 
the instruction was by means of lectures. These were given 
in Calhoun's day by Judge Reeve, the founder of the school, 
and James Gould, a much younger man, whom Reeve, in 1798, 
had called upon to aid him. Both were men of marked ability ; 
and Gould is thought by the author of a recent sketch to have 
had qualities that we may well suppose to have contributed 
largely to the masterly power of analysis and definite state- 
ment shown so conspicuously in later days by Calhoun. Gould 
was extremely lucid and addicted to clear-cut rules and defini- 
tions, so that each student could, in this writer's opinion, 
" learn from him the faculty of stating propositions in definite 
and simple form, and following them up by orderly and logical 
methods of explanation." u 

Possibly this same faculty for lucid reasoning was the qual- 
ity that led Gould to admire the common law and its intense 
logic almost as extravagantly as Blackstone had done. A grad- 
uate of the school in 1814 wrote of him as " the last of the 
Romans of the Common Law lawyers, the impersonation of 
its genius and spirit. It was indeed in his eyes the perfection 

12 Speech in Senate; Congressional Debates, Twenty-fourth Congress, 
Second Session, Vol. XIII, Part 1, 1836-37, pp. 301, 302. 

13 " Measures not Men," &c, &c., ut ante, New York. 1823, p. 6. 

14 " Sketch of Gould," by Prof. Baldwin, in Lewis's "Great American 
Lawyers," Vol. II, pp. 455-487, 471. 472: from which source most of the 
facts in the text in regard to the Litchfield Law School are derived. 



FURTHER TRAINING 79 

of human reason." 15 But this belief, however prevalent in 
Blackstone's time, was hardly so widely held even in England 
in Gould's day or Calhoun's, and may possibly have con- 
tributed to the dislike of the law that a young man from the 
frontier of South Carolina early in the nineteenth century was 
likely to feel for a system which, while often almost logical 
in the sense of the school-men, too often forgot the essential 
justice of the question at issue and was certainly quite un- 
fitted for application in a new country. 

A few years after Calhoun's time the regular course of 
study at the school was completed in fourteen months, which 
period included two vacations of four weeks each, — one in 
the spring and one in the autumn. There were occasionally 
students who remained longer, but not many stayed more 
than eighteen months, as they would have found themselves 
merely taking for the second time lectures that they had al- 
ready heard. The number of students in 1798 had been about 
forty, and the fees for tuition about 1816 to 1820 were one 
hundred dollars for the first year and sixty dollars for a sec- 
ond year. The students were expected to examine and study 
some of the cases, — then, of necessity, almost entirely from 
English reports, — referred to by the lecturer, and quizzes were 
given at this later time, whether such was the case during 
Calhoun's stay or not. Moot-courts were held once or twice 
a week, with Mr. Gould presiding, and here of course the future 
great leader in the Senate had again, as he had already had at 
Waddel's school, an opportunity to cultivate a readiness to 
think on his legs. The " Autobiography " emphasizes the great 
importance of this part of the training. It is of interest, too, 
to note that some of the lectures, which covered a wide field of 
law, were upon the subjects of Constitutional Law and the 
Legislation of Congress. 

The same authority tells us that Calhoun " acquired great 
distinction " at the Litchfield school, and an anonymous pam- 
phlet of 1823 10 adds to this that " while at the law school, Mr. 

15 The words in italics are used by Blackstone in speaking of the com- 
mon law. 
* 6 " Measures not Men," &c, ut ante. 



80 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Calhoun was much distinguished by his talent for extempo- 
raneous debating." 17 He by no means, however, devoted 
himself exclusively to law, but the politics of the world as well 
as the smaller squabbles in his part of South Carolina had 
their share of attention. It is of interest to find him writing 
to a cousin in one letter 1S congratulating him upon admission 
to the bar and then launching out, evidently with reference to 
some faction at his home, that " it is high time for those 
selfish usurpers on the publick opinion to be painted in their 
true light. . . . For my part, I never could think with com- 
placency of some upstarts in that part of the State, whose 
thoughts and lives have been consumed in drawing down char- 
acters whose actions have afforded volumes of proof of in- 
tegrity and wisdom." And then he soon starts off on a new 
subject and writes : " War between France and Austria is 
inevitable, Bonapart's speech before the senate on his depar- 
ture from Paris to take command of the army on the Rine, 
and the Austrian manifesto are both published. The former 
full of confidence in victory; the latter apparently moderate, 
but resolute. What will be the event time alone can unfold ; 
but I distrust the fortune of the allies. 19 The period is cer- 
tainly eventful." 

Though keeping aloof from social intercourse at Litchfield, 
he yet wrote 20 of it as " among the most pleasant towns I 
ever have been in," and took part in some of the amusements 
of the new climate. On January 19, 1806, he wrote: " W r e 
have excellent sleighing here. I was out last evening for the 
first time this season ; and found it very agreeable. It is a 
mode of conveyance that the people of this state are very fond 
of." The climate, so different from that of his home, receives 

17 A biographical sketch reprinted from the " United States Telegraph " 
in the Charleston "Mercury" of May 10, 1831, tells us that the students 
at Litchfield formed a debating society, which held open meetings, and that 
these were at times of great interest to the inhabitants. But I cannot 
suppose the further statement that they selected for debate " the most 
agitating political questions of the day " can be relied upon. 

18 Letter to Andrew Pickens, dated November 24, 1805. The reference 
therein to factions at home is naturally not clear. 

10 The brittle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805, ended the Austrian part 
of the war. 
20 Letter to Mrs. Colhoun, dated June 2, 1806. 



FURTHER TRAINING 81 

frequent mention. The fierce colds of winter seem to have 
been distasteful to him, but the northern summers, so often 
as they were moderate, evidently suited him well. As late 
as July 3, of 1806, he wrote: "I have never experienced so 
cool a summer as this has been. We have not had a day 
disagreeably warm." He apparently maintained a fairly wide 
correspondence with friends in his own State, and is to be 
found occasionally expressing that regret that those far ab- 
sent are pretty sure to complain of now and then at the lapse 
of a long period without letters from home. 

Calhoun's residence in the northern climate seems to have 
been decidedly beneficial to his health, and it is not impossible 
that the hope of this was in part the moving cause that led to 
his selection of New Haven and Litchfield. He refers in sev- 
eral letters to the excellent health he was enjoying, which 
seems to have been interrupted only by an occasional cold 
and the one serious illness he had about the time of his gradu- 
ation at Yale. The " unhealthy season " at home was often 
a sort of nightmare in those days; but he himself escaped it 
entirely for four or five years. 21 His final return to South 
Carolina was made late in 1806, and on October 1, 1807, after 
having spent a summer at home, he was able to write Mrs. 
Colhoun from Abbeville : " I have not had better health for 
many years." 

With this lady, his intimacy had grown very close, and 
she had evidently come to rely on him a good deal, consulting 
him as to an instructor for her children and on similar mat- 
ters. He wrote of her as being " almost a mother " to him, 
and felt very strongly her kindness. At one time, when his 
brother James had written that, owing to the closing out of 
his own business, he would " find it some what difficult to 
make the summer remittance to me," Calhoun wrote asking 
Mrs. Colhoun whether she could make it convenient to supply 
him until the fall, and added that he would " be able to return 
it during the course of the winter. Two hundred dollars will 

21 He was at Abbeville, studying law with Mr. Bowie, during the winter 
of 1805, but appears to have been in the North, either at New Haven or 
Litchfield, every summer and autumn, beginning with 1802, — or at least 
1803, — and ending with 1806. 



82 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

answer my present want." 22 I know of nothing to show 
whether the loan was actually made or not, but their inti- 
macy was such as to make it most probable. 

Mrs. Colhoun was evidently a religious woman and sev- 
eral times wrote Calhoun upon the subject of religion. He 
shared her feelings, and is to be found at this period of life 
very ready to discover the hand of the Deity in sickness and 
other ills suffered by those members of poor humanity of whose 
course of action he does not approve. On March 3, 1806, 
he wrote her : 

I receive with gratitude your friendly advice and anxious solici- 
tude for my welfare on the all important subject of religion. 
You do me injustice to apprehend that I should receive it other- 
wise than a mark of the purest and highest friendship. For 
surely we can give no higher evidence of our friendship, than in 
endeavoring to promote the best interest of the subject of it. 
Be assured that whatever you may say on this head will be kindly 
received. 23 

Several other references to religion are to be found in his 
letters to her. In 1806, he read in a New York paper a state- 
ment from some one in Charleston that a " very great serious- 
ness and attention to religion had diffused itself over that city. 
What a happy change," so he goes on to Mrs. Colhoun, " to 
that place ; which in every thing was so extremely corrupt ; and 
particularly so inattentive to every call of religion. I hope, 
and think it probable, that this change will extend itself from 
the city to the country. Surely no people ever so much 
needed a reform as those in the parishes near Charleston." 

Not many months passed, however, until information more 
to be relied upon than that of newspapers came to hand, and 
he had to inform Mrs. Colhoun that a Southern visitor told 
him that " the accounts of the revival of religion in Charles- 
ton which appeared in the papers some time since was un- 
founded. Every friend to religion and that place must regret 

22 Letter of July 3, 1806. 

23 In later days her religious ministrations seemed to a bright observer 
rather burdensome. " The First Forty Years of Washington Society," 
by Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith, pp. 153, 159, 160; and see infra, p. 283. 



FURTHER TRAINING 83 

it." And in another letter, a year or two later, after his re- 
turn home, when mentioning the good health prevailing that 
summer around Abbeville, he refers to the same general subject 
as follows : 

We ought to feel thankful for this ; more especially as in some 
parts of the state it is said to be uncommonly sickly. The 
stranger's fever is said to be unusually fatal this year in Charles- 
ton. Every paper from there brings a long catalogue of deaths. 
This is in part no doubt to be attributed to the nature of the cli- 
mate ; but a much greater part is owing to the misconduct of the 
inhabitants ; and may be considered as a curse for their intemper- 
ance and debaucheries. 24 

He maintained also more or less correspondence with his 
brother-in-law and former teacher, Dr. Waddel. This gentle- 
man, whose real function on earth was surely the teaching of 
boys, seems to have forever had a hankering after the pulpit. 
In 1806 25 he had a charge and wrote Calhoun that his preach- 
ing had had much effect among his then congregation, adding : 
" I never before had so much encouragement to labour in the 
gospel as there at present." Calhoun tells his correspondent 
that Waddel's " hopes at his other congregation were flattering; 
but owing to an unhappy dissension between two of its princi- 
pal members his success has not been so great." 

An effort has been made on a preceding page to show what 
influence Calhoun's surroundings and the course of events dur- 
ing his early life in the upper country of South Carolina were 
likely to have on his future political theories. What, if any- 
thing, may we suppose to have been added to these by his resi- 
dence of four years in New England in the beginning of the 
nineteenth century, when he was still in the plastic time of 
youth? This is not the place to argue as to the then prevail- 
ing political beliefs of that section, but candid history hardly 
questions to-day that allegiance to the federal government 
was a very weak strand in their composition. The leading 
federalists of the East, aristocrats to the heart, were all aghast 
at the triumph of the rag-tag democracy — as they thought 

24 Letters of April 13 and June 2, 1806 and October 1, 1807. 

25 Letter of Calhoun to Mrs. Colhoun, March 3. 



84 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

it, — of Jefferson in 1800, and could not become reconciled to 
the control of the federal government by a party with which 
they had no opinion in common and whose triumph had 
snatched from their hands for the time being that control of 
the governmental machinery in their own interest, which they 
thought a sacred birthright. 

Even so early as the beginning of the new century, not a few 
of their leaders meditated the breaking up of the Union, and, 
as the Jeffersonians tended more and more against England in 
the giant contest of the day, this feeling grew steadily stronger 
among them, until they committed an almost overt act in the 
assembling of the Hartford Convention and its sending of a 
delegation to Washington to interview the heavily burdened 
President. The actual design of these emissaries has been 
guarded from public knowledge with such jealous secrecy that 
it will never be capable of demonstration, but we may at least 
safely say that the delegation bore with it a strong aroma of 
ultimate secession and certainly did not travel to Washington 
in order to offer a " loyal support " to President Madison. 
The sudden arrival of the treaty of peace and of the news of 
Jackson's triumph at New Orleans ended their plans and made 
the emissaries ridiculous. Ample evidence to prove in out- 
line the long history of this New England secession movement 
has survived the holocausts of their past correspondence, which 
these worthy gentlemen found it advisable to indulge in dur- 
ing later years, at a time when their earlier views had come to 
be highly unfashionable ; and it is only among the very partisan 
or the ignorant that these truths are questioned. 

Of course, all this New England opinion must have come 
to Calhoun's ears. Doubtless, with his religious feelings, he 
went to church among them, and their divines were, as has 
been seen more than once in other latitudes, not among the 
slowest to express aloud opinions of the sort popular among 
their parishioners. It has been shown already that he largely 
avoided the making of friends in Litchfield because the place 
was " so much agitated by party feelings." But, more than 
this, several of his instructors were men of most ultra opinions 
in regard to political matters, and it will soon be shown that 



FURTHER TRAINING 85 

one of the teachers at the law-school was directly concerned 
in the plots and plans to have New England break away from 
the Union. D wight, too, — the President of Yale during Cal- 
houn's years there, — had held the general Federalist views 
very strongly, and was quite irreconcilable with the growth 
of Republican opinion and power; and it has been seen that 
he and Calhoun had one political discussion in the class-room at 
Yale. Can any candid person doubt that there were other 
such discussions, or that the professor's opinions often came 
out in his lectures and explanations? 

There is, however, one case plainer yet. Tapping Reeve, the 
head of the law school that Calhoun attended, was in private 
life a most estimable person, but his views upon governmental 
affairs, — particularly as to the nature of our Union, — were 
by no means such as New England has taught since she re- 
covered her full share in the control of the federal machinery, 
and especially since 1 861-1865. His partner, too, James 
Gould, was a strong Federalist and had married a daughter 
of Uriah Tracy, another of the irreconcilables and concerned 
in the separatist plans. I know of no evidence that Gould 
took any active part in the then plans of the New England 
leaders, but Reeve, while a member of the Connecticut Su- 
preme Court, wrote for a newspaper such bitter criticism of the 
federal administration that he was selected by the instigator 
of the federal prosecutions for libel of that day as one of those 
to be included in the well-known indictments. 26 

Moreover in 1804, only a year and a half before Calhoun 
came up to the Law School, Reeve had written a confidential 
letter 27 to Uriah Tracy (his partner's father-in-law) in re- 

29 The facts in the text are taken in part from Prof. Baldwin's " Sketch 
of James Gould," in Lewis's " Great American Lawyers," ut supra, pp. 
458, 471, &c. Jefferson, in accordance with his course as to cases under 
the Alien and Sedition Laws, disapproved of the prosecution of Judge 
Reeve and ordered a nolle entered. Reeve's prosecution cannot, as is often 
stated, have been based on the Sedition Act, for that statute expired by 
its terms on March 3, 1801. It must have been based on an effort of its 
originators to revive the federal doctrine of a common law of the United 
States. See U. S. v. Hudson and Goodwin, 7 Cranch, 32. 

- 7 Printed at large in Henry C. Lodge's "Life and Letters of George 
Cabot," pp. 442, 443. Mr. Lodge's book is a mine of information as to 
the then New England plans for breaking up the Union, and the author 



86 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

gard to the subject of disunion and discussing what were the 
proper steps to take on the part of their friends in order to 
bring about a preparedness for the coming separation. " I 
have seen," wrote Judge Reeve, "many of our friends; and 
all that I have seen, and most that I have heard from, believe 
that we must separate, and that this is the most favorable mo- 
ment. The difficulty is, how is this to be accomplished? I 
have heard of only three gentlemen, as yet, who appear un- 
decided upon the subject." 

If the reader will now recall the fact that during Calhoun's 
time at the school, or a very few years later, either the au- 
thor of this letter or his partner, James Gould, delivered regu- 
lar lectures in the Litchfield School upon the subjects of Con- 
stitutional Law and the Legislation of Congress, I do not 
think he can doubt that the lectures must have been largely 
tinctured by the opinions that the letter shows Reeve to have 
held. What influence upon Calhoun such views may have 
had is possibly in some respects uncertain. It is conceivable 
that he was simply revolted at the violence and passion of 
the Federalists and their wild desire to shatter the Union for 
so petty a cause as a political defeat, which had certainly as 
yet brought no oppression upon them; but it may at least be 
said with entire confidence that if in his earlier days at home 
he had imbibed strong beliefs as to the rights of the States in 
our system, his experience of New England opinion between 
1802 and 1806 during his Lehrjahre could not but have con- 
vinced him that the same beliefs were widespread throughout 
the country and especially prevalent in the opposite end of the 
Union from that to which he belonged. 28 

And we shall find this opinion confirmed and strengthened 

admits (p. 440) what, of course, candor required him to admit, — that they 
looked upon the Union as an experiment and the separation of the States 
as merely a question of policy. How the historian should regret that 
George Cabot (and doubtless many another ultra Federalist whose views 
have since grown unpopular) " shortly before his death made an almost 
complete destruction of all his letters and papers." (Mr. Lodge's 
" Preface.") See also Henry Adams's " New England Federalism," passim, 
28 It is amazing to find a learned writer, when speaking of Calhoun's 
days at Yale and Litchfield, dispose of the subject in the few words: Thus 
Calhoun " received his early training from staunch Federalists in the 
Union State of Connecticut." 



FURTHER TRAINING 87 

by the events of the following years. As early as the end of 
1808 the threat from New England of a division of the States 
was spoken of and doubtless widely known in South Caro- 
lina. 29 At this date, Calhoun was already embarked in public 
affairs, as a member of the State Legislature, of course watch- 
ing from afar the debates in Congress and the conduct of 
public men and necessarily familiar with a matter of such 
boundless importance. And in the autumn of 1810 he was 
elected a member of the Twelfth Congress; so it may surely 
be assumed that he read somewhere the extravagant secession 
speech 30 of Josiah Quincy in the House of Representatives on 
January 14, 181 1. He next served in the House with this 
same Quincy during one Congress and had some acquaintance 
with him. 31 Quincy was a man of marked ability, very out- 
spoken and so determined a fighter that Washington Irving 32 
described him as walking up and down the lobby " like a lion 
lashing his sides with his tail," while the House debated points 
of order raised against him. 

Scenes and events such as these were not likely to eradicate 
from Calhoun's mind the impression he had imbibed during 
his years of study in Connecticut. Whatever their immediate 
effect on him may have been, when he became in time an ultra 
believer in States' rights he was surely only following the 
lead for which the circumstances of his home in early days, 
his observation of New England opinion at Yale and at Litch- 
field and his acquaintance with their public men in Congress a 
few years later had steadily ripened his mind. 

29 See the letters of Chancellor DeSaussure, a strong Federalist, to 
Josiah Quincy of December 7, 1808, and January 21, 1809, printed in 
Edmund Quincy's " Life of Josiah Quincy," pp. 189-91. 

30 Speaking to the bill for the admission of the Territory of Orleans as 
a State, Quincy said : " If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion 
that it is virtually a dissolution of this Union ; that it will free the States 
from their moral obligation, and, as it will be the right of all, so it will 
be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation, amicably if 
they can, violently if they must." Annals of Congress, Eleventh Congress, 
Third Session, 1810-11, pp. 525-40. This, and other parts of Quincy's 
speech, were printed in the Charleston " Courier" of January 31, 1811. 

31 Quincy's " Quincy," pp. 242, 256. 

32 Ibid., p. 236. 






CHAPTER V 

LEGAL CAREER 

Completes Law Studies with Chancellor DeSaussure — 
Great Success at the Bar — Love and Marriage — Correspon- 
dence — Gives up the Law. 

The exact time at which Calhoun left Litchfield to return 
home cannot be ascertained. It must, however, have been 
quite a little later than September n, 1806, for on that date 
he wrote from Litchfield to Mrs. Colhoun that he was still at- 
tending some important lectures at the Law School. He went 
by stage to Philadelphia and then proceeded the rest of the 
way alone on horseback; but the account of his journey and 
of his doings about this time can best be given from his let- 
ter of December 22, 1806. On that date, he wrote Mrs. Col- 
houn from Charleston as follows : 

Dear Madam, Sensible that you are always desirous of hear- 
ing from me I can scarcely excuse myself in not writing till the 
present time. The day before I left Litchfield, I answered your 
last, in which I mentioned my determination to set out in a few 
days for Carolina by land. I proceeded to Philadelphia in the 
stage, where I purchased a horse and finished the remainder of 
the Journey on horse back, through what is generally called the 
uper rout. In a tour so long without a companion, and a stranger 
to the road I necessarily experienced many solitary hours. My 
reward was the perpetual gratification of curiosity in passing 
through a country entirely new to me, romantick in a high degree, 
and abounding with many objects of considerable novelty. On 
my arrival in Carolina I was happy to find all my friends and re- 
lations well, with only a few instances of slight fall fevers. 
After spending a few weeks in Abbeville I returned to this place, 
where I expect to continue in Mr. DeSaussure's law office till 
June ; at which time I expect to retire to the uper country for 
health; as it will not be safe for me with my northern habit to 

88 



LEGAL CAREER 89 

continue in Charleston. Your acquaintances here, as far as I 
know, are well. . . . Since my arrival here I have been very 
much of a recluse. I board with the French protestant minister 
Mr. Detarguey in Church Street. It is a quiet home and an- 
swers my purpose well. 

He remained, doubtless, according to his intention, a student 
with Mr. DeSaussure until June, 1807, in which month he 
went to Abbeville village, meaning to practise law, and was 
admitted to the bar after examination at the next term of 
the Supreme Court at Columbia. 1 It would be interesting 
to know the course of study he followed with the future great 
Chancellor of South Carolina, but it may possibly be surmised 
to have had reference mainly to the special peculiarities of the 
system of law in his own State. He was doubtless already 
well grounded in general principles, but it was necessary for 
him to learn also how these were applied and their variations 
in the jurisdiction where he intended to reside. Therefore, the 
statutes of South Carolina were probably his main study, and 
possibly he was aided by his instructor in securing some knowl- 
edge of what is known among lawyers as "practice," — the 
method in which suits are instituted and brought to trial and 
final conclusion. He was apparently not admitted to practise 
in the chancery courts until 1808, 2 the year after his admission 
to the ordinary courts. 

Calhoun did not continue long at the bar and evidently always 
disliked the profession; but none the less had a marked degree 
of success. O'Neall 3 writes : 

... He was admitted to the bar in 1807 and opened his office 
at Abbeville; he practised there, and at Newberry, and I pre- 
sume in the other adjoining districts. . . . His reputation was ex- 
traordinary for so young a man. He was conceded, as early as 
1809, to be the most promising young lawyer in the upper coun- 

1 Col. Starke's " Sketch," p. 85. His name does not appear in O'Neall's 
" Bench and Bar," Vol. II, pp. 606 and 509 in the lists of those admitted 
to the bar, but in the separate sketch of Calhoun in ibid. p. 284, he is said 
to have been admitted in 1807. See also Jenkins's " Life," p. 32, to the 
same effect. This early writer bears out the surmise in the text as to the 
special studies followed by Calhoun under Chancellor DeSaussure. Ibid. 

2 Starke's " Sketch," p. 86. 

3 " Bench and Bar," Vol. II, p. 284. 



90 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

try. Chancellor Bowie of Alabama, who lived at Abbeville and 
had a fine opportunity of knowing Mr. Calhoun's early reputa- 
tion as a lawyer, says: " With the members of the bar as well 
as with the people, he stood very high in his profession. Per- 
haps no lawyer in the State ever acquired so high a reputation from 
his first appearance at the bar as he did. . . . The business of 
the court was nearly evenly divided between himself, Mr. Yancey 
and my brother George." 

With such marked success and with his mental traits, it is 
not easy to understand why the law was so distasteful to Cal- 
houn. It has been seen that such was the case, even while 
he was a student, and his letters while he was in the full tide 
of success at the bar contain indications of the same feeling. 
He evidently felt strongly his responsibility to clients, but this 
served only to add to the irksomeness of his exacting work. 

There was another cause : He was in love during these his 
early years at the bar, and the object of his passion, Floride 
Colhoun, the only daughter of his friend and connection, Mrs. 
John Ewing Colhoun, lived a part of the year far away in 
Newport and the rest of the time at her mother's plantation 
near Bonneau's Ferry in South Carolina, — not much less than 
two hundred miles from Abbeville, — or still further away in 
Charleston. Naturally, the young lover chafed at his enforced 
absence. 

The story of Calhoun's love and approaching marriage can 
best be told from his own letters, and they will show, if proof 
be needed of so patent a fact, that a man addicted in later 
life to the clearest and possibly coldest of reasoning can in 
youth be ardent enough as a lover. The same letters, too, 
will tell us something of his practice at the bar and give 
glimpses of his entrance upon public affairs, in the glory of his 
springtime of life. The letters are all but one addressed to his 
future mother-in-law, to whom he evidently first spoke upon 
the subject of his love. He corresponded also later with Miss 
Colhoun, but his letters to her, with a single exception, have 
been lost. 

Floride Colhoun, the object of his passion, was the daughter 
of his deceased first cousin, John Ewing Colhoun, and was 



LEGAL CAREER 91 

ten years his junior. She was born February 15, 1792. Col. 
Starke, referring to about the time when she was seventeen 
years old, writes 4 that she " is represented as being beautiful 
in form and features, graceful and winning in manner and 
address. Being half French, she manifested the cheerful 
vivacity of her Huguenot ancestry, as well as those more solid 
qualities for which they were distinguished." Calhoun had of 
course seen her often as a child, — when he was studying at 
Yale and at Litchfield and stayed in her mother's house, — in 
the years from 1804 to the end of 1806. She was then, how- 
ever, only twelve to fourteen years of age, and his letters of 
this date to the mother often send love to Floride and other 
young members of the family, or she is even included simply 
in the words " love to the children." 

The friendship between Calhoun and the mother was kept 
up after Calhoun started out at the bar, and he spent a time 
at their plantation at Bonneau's Ferry in the spring of 1808. 5 
In the spring of 1809, again, his correspondence shows that 
he had wanted to visit them, but was unable to do so because 
of the pressure of his law practice. In the summer, however, 
he was their guest again, and shortly after returning home 
wrote to the mother declaring his passion. The letter clearly 
shows that he had already spoken of the matter to Mrs. 
Colhoun, though not to the daughter. Floride was at this 
time not quite seventeen and a half years old, and I know of 
nothing to show more accurately when he first became con- 
scious of his love. But the letters will now best carry on the 
story of these early years, while it should be borne in mind that 
he was elected to the State Legislature in the fall of 1808 
and to the House of Representatives in Congress in 1810. 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoun, at Charleston. 

Newbury Court house 6 th April 1809. 

D r Madam, I regret exceedingly that I cannot carry into effect 

my expectation of visiting Charleston before your departure 

thence. I have received during the circuit a considerable influx 

of Chancery business ; which as that court sets in June it will be 

* '* Sketch," p. 86. 

b Col. Starke's " Sketch," p. 86. 




9 2 



LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 



impossible without a considerable neglect of my professional 
duties. I consider myself as not a little unfortunate in this dis- 
apointment; as while you were in the up country I had no op- 
portunity excepting amidst the hurry of business to spend any 
time in your company. I should have been glad to have con- 
versed with you on many points ; but we must all submit to those 
duties which call friends to a distance from one another. It is 
perhaps one of the most disagreeable circumstances in our profes- 
sion, that we cannot neglect its pursuit, without being Guilty 
at the same time of imprudence and a breach of confidence, re- 
posed in us by our clients. I feel myself now and while I con- 
tinue in the practice of the law almost as a slave chained down 
to a particular place and course of life. I have been very suc- 
cessful on the circuit in obtaining business ; and doubt not in a 
short time to have as much as I can conveniently attend to ; how- 
ever I still feel a strong aversion to the law ; and am determined 
to forsake it as soon as I can make a decent independence; for I 
am not ambitious of great wealth. . . . 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoux, at Newport. 

Abbeville 25 th June 1809 
D r Madam, After I left you at the plantation, 6 I had a very 
pleasant, tho' solitary journey, to this place. At Pine Vile, I spent 
two days. I had the pleasure of meeting D r M c Bride. ... I did 
not see the object of the Doctor's affections, as she was gone to 
Charleston ; which was of considerable regret to him and myself. 
She has the reputation, however, of being handsome ; and, which 
to my mind is of much more importance, an amiable fine char- 
acter. I felt a delightful sympathy at the prospect of my friend's 
happy establishment in life. It also called up strongly in my 
mind another subject of interest more important to myself. You 
know the one I alude to. It will be useless for me to conceal 
from you my increased anxiety on that subject. The more I re- 
flect on it, the more indisoluably does my happiness seem to 
be connected with that event. If, I should finally be disappointed 
by any adverse circumstance, which heaven forbid, it will be by 
far the most unlucky accident in my life. I look for you next 
fall without any doubt, and at all events ; and hope nothing but 
an impossibility will prevent you ; at which time, I hope, at least, 
but still much more, to get rid of my anxiety. As to any dis- 

8 Doubtless Mrs. Colhoun's plantation, at Bonneau's Ferry. 



LEGAL CAREER 93 

closure if that may be necessary; I leave it wholly to your pru- 
dence ; For I feel that nothing can shake my regard. On my re- 
turn I found it universally report [ed] as I conjectured. In fact 
to me it is quite unaccountable how such an impression should be- 
come so universal. 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoun, at Newport. 

Abbeville 18 th July 1809. 

Dr. Madam, By the last mail, I received your agreeable let- 
ter of the 18 th Ultimo. 

Except of my hearty thanks for the promptitude of your com- 
munication; which has releaved my mind from no small degree 
of anxiety. I can scarcely describe my emotions, when I saw 
your well known hand writing with the New Port post mark. 
But the contrariety of emotion it excited of hope and fear quickly 
subsided into the most agreeable feeling on perusing its contents. 

This languages does not correspond with my former opinion 
upon this subject. I formerly thought that it would be im- 
possible for me to be strongly agitated in an affair of this kind; 
but that opinion now seems to me wholly unfounded, since, as it 
were in the very commencement, it can produce such effects. Do 
let me know in your next, at what time in the fall I may expect 
you. The time will seem long, and, I hope, you will make your 
return as soon after the sickly season as possible. So unlimited 
is my confidence in your prudence and friendship, that to you I 
make the full and entire disclosure of the most inward recesses 
of my thoughts ; while to all the world, even to my own brothers, 
I am quite silent. I have a strong inclination to lay open my in- 
tention to the object of my affection by letter ; if this meets with 
your approbation, as proper, nothing will prevent me from so 
doing. Will you be so good, as to let me know your sentiment, 
on that point ; and whether I may have your assent to such cor- 
respondence. 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoun, at Charleston 

Abbeville 20 th Jan. 1810. 
Dr. Madam, Without pretending to decide whether that maxim 
from which you draw so much of your sperit of resignation to 
the various events of this life, " that all is for the best," is in every 
instance true, yet I am sure that in many instances things falling 
out different from what we would have ordered contribute to 



94 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

promote our happiness. This was my case the two last days I staid 
at the Ferry. 7 I spent them so pleasantly ; and the reflection on 
them since has been such a copious source of gratification and 
delight, that I feel myself richly rewarded for the delay, had it 
been for weeks. I hope, I shall forever find cause to esteem them 
a fortunate and happy period of my life. Should it contribute 
in any degree to an event, I have so much at heart, how happy 
a man shall I be. May He who governs all things cause it to 
eventuate so happily ! — I had fine weather on my return ; and 
my journey was only made disagreeable by reflecting on the in- 
creasing distance of those for whom I have so great a regard. 
. . . Tell my much esteemed Florid e that nothing could prevent 
me from the pleasure of writing, but that there is so much sus- 
picion on the subject, that I am fearful of the fate of a double 
letter endorsed in my hand writing. I hope to see you early next 
month ; let it not be. if possible, past the midle. I would recom- 
mend the road by Gibham's. The road from the ferry there is 
as good and as near as from Charleston to the same place. 

[P.S.] Tell Floride that no time, or distance can in the least 
abate my affection, but that absence only proves how much my 
happiness depends on her good opinions. 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoux, at Newport. 

Abbeville 12 th June 1810. 
D r . Madam, I got up safely. I was much favoured by the 
weather. I would have had a lonesome journey, had it not been 
that my thoughts were so much absorbed by that subject so im- 
portant to me: and so near my heart. How important it is, on 
that occasion to have the full, and entire sanction of our reason; 
and how delightful it is. that the more I reflect, the greater cause 
I see, to thank that good providence who has directed my choice. 
I am not much given to enthusiasm : nor to anticipate future hap- 
pinesss. But. I cannot, now refrain my hopes of joy. On my 
part, I feel the most anxious solicitude for the happiness of one, 
to me dearer than all others ; on hers, after a careful examina- 
tion, I find none but those qualities in her character, which are 
suited to me ; and are calculated to secure lasting enjoyment. 
Let me add. without the least imputation of flattery, that, to be 
so nearly related to yourself, is a fruitful source of happiness. I 
know not why, from my first acquaintance with you at Xew-Port, 

7 Bonneau's Ferry again, where Mrs. Colhoun had a plantation. 



LEGAL CAREER 95 

I have loved you as a mother. Sure am I, that I could not from 
a mother experience more kindness and tender affection. With 
the blessing of God I cannot but be happy; when every circum- 
stance is so propitious. If possible, I will be in New Port next 
fall. I wish much that Floride would consent to that time. I 
will write to her about it, by my next. I think on many accounts 
it will be the best. If you know her sentiment I would be glad 
you would let me know in your next, for it will be a great induce- 
ment for me to go on, if she agrees to that time ; and what is a 
matter of importance, will furnish a good excuse for my leaving 
my professional business at the fall court. 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoun, at Newport. 

Abbeville, 30 th June 1810. 
D r . Madam, ... I am glad you mentioned the subject, so 
near to my heart, to Mr. Desaussure. It always struck me it 
would be proper to do so, and I should have mentioned it my- 
self, if you had not. I am convinced he is a friend to both of us. 
You mention that " he will have some conversation with me on 
the subject." 8 This makes me doubly anxious to see him, for 
whatever has the least relation to it arrests my attention. 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoun, at Newport. 

Abbeville 18 th July, 1810 
... I have been looking out for some weeks past for a place 
to purchase so as to establish myself permanently for life. I was 
desirous of purchasing on the Savannah river near my relatives, 
but I find only one place for sale there and that at a price nearly 
double its value. At present I have a place near by brother Pat- 
rick's. 9 It is a valuable one and as pleasant as any in that part 
of the State. 10 If I purchase I may commence building im- 
mediately, but perhaps it will be best to postpone building till 
some time next winter, for should the event I have so much at 
heart take place next winter according to present arrangements 
and I should be elected to Congress next fall, of which I sup- 
pose there is no doubt, both my own inclination and the health of 
Floride would require the following summer to be spent in 
travel. 

8 I presume a marriage settlement for Miss Colhoun, spoken of in Cal- 
houn's letter of September 7, 1810, shortly infra, is the subject referred to. 
I do not know whether one was made. 

9 " The old Calhoun homestead." Note by Col. Starke. 
""Bath." Ibid. 



96 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoun, at Newport. 

Abbeville 7 th Sep. 1810. 

Dear Madam, I join with you in expression of gratitude to 
that good providence, who has so mercifully preserved the life 
of one so dear to our future hopes and happiness. 11 The perusal 
of your letter filled me with joy and sympathy at the same time. 
Joy for her preservation; and sympathy for the pain she must 
have endured. How often and unmerited do we experience the 
kind interferance of heaven ! . . . 

By the last mail, I had a long answer from Judge Desaussure, 
to a letter I had addressed him as soon as I heard of his return 
to Charleston. He is pleased to express himself in very flatter- 
ing terms of me; and to give his entire approbation to the con- 
templated connection. . . . Judge Desaussure mentions the set- 
tlement of Floride's property. I know not, but that it will be 
indelicate in me to express my opinion on that subject. The for- 
tune is her's. I am not directed in my choice by it. Yet, I think 
it a duty, that I owe to yourself and Floride to be perfectly candid 
on all points. From prejudice, or reason, I have been always op- 
posed to marriage settlements. I think experience and reason 
prove them to be unfriendly to the happiness of the marriage state ; 
and, that they tend to produce pecuniary embarresment. In that 
state there should be one interest, one happiness and one destiny. 
That entire confidence, which is reposed by a female in the object 
of her choice, in placing both her honor and her property in his 
custody give rise to the most sacred and tender regard. A mar- 
riage settlement implys a distrust. It is no safety against inevita- 
ble accident. It is a guard against the imprudence, or miscon- 
duct of the husband only. As far as children are concerned, it 
places them above the dependence of the parents. Nothing can 
be more unfriendly to their government, or character. As to 
property, it often tends to prevent farther accumulation ; and pre- 
vent an extrication at the commencement of an embarresment. 
If successful in life, there is no benefit in one; if unsuccessful, 
what more disagreeable than to have property, but not to be able 
to pay just debts? It would to me, be wretched. It would be 
splendid poverty. You have my candid sentiment; dictated, not 
by selfish views, but a regard to our mutual happiness. It is my 
duty to give it. . . . 

11 1 presume this has reference to a fall, or some such accident, suffered 
by Miss Colhoun. 



LEGAL CAREER 97 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoun, at Newport. 

Abbeville, 13 th Sept 1810. 
Dear Madam, I know not how to express my gratitude for 
that almost maternal regard, which you have always exercised 
towards me. Such is the warmth of affection, which, I feel to- 
wards you, that I can scarcely refrain from addressing you by 
the endearing epithet of mother. I hope the time now will not be 
long, when I may with propriety use it. That day, which will put 
me in that endearing relation towards you will be the happiest 
of my life. In yours of the 20 th of August, which I received 
yesterday, you observe, " that should it be the will of the Al- 
mighty to unite me to Floride that you only wish, she may make 
me as happy as I deserve." In that event it will be mine to make 
her happy. Should I always remain with my present feeling, 
which I trust in God I may, no task will be half so sweet to me, 
as to make her, as happy, as the conditions of this life will per- 
mit. I have no doubt, Floride will be actuated with similar feel- 
ings towards me. This mutual love must constitute the joy of the 
marriage state. To be united in the sacred bonds of matrimony ; 
to regard one another, as companions mutually united for mutual 
happiness, for each to place their greatest joy in the happiness 
of the other, is to my mind the most enviable condition on earth. 

that our married life may so commence so continue and so end ! 
And that you, our dear mother, may long continue to live, to enjoy 
and participate in our happiness. ... I mentioned in my last, that 
it would not be possible for me to visit N. Port this fall. ... As 

1 shall cease issuing business after this fall, I shall have leisure 
to accompany you by land hereafter. Which ever way you de- 
termine, I hope you will be here by the midle of Nov r . If you 
conclude to come by water I shall be in Charleston by the 20 th 
of that month, at fartherest. Your friends here are all well. 

To Miss Floride Colhoun, at Newport. 

Abbeville, S. C, 28 Sept., 1810. 
I rejoice, my dearest Floride, that the period is fast approach- 
ing when it will be no longer necessary to address you through 
the cold medium of a letter. At furthest it cannot be much 
longer than a month before I shall behold the dearest object of my 
hopes and desires. I am anxious to see you and my impatience 
daily increases. May heaven grant you a safe return. What 
pleasure I have experienced in your company, what delight in 



>S LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUX 

the exchange of sentiment, what transport in the testimonies of 
mutual love. In a short time this with the permission of heaven 
will be renewed, and I shall be hapry. To be united in mutual 
virtuous love is the first and best bliss that God has permitted 
to our natuTr one. may our love strengthen with 

each returning day. may it ripen and mellow with c ~ md 

mav it end in immortal joys. It gives me much - : action mat 
time and absence make no impression on my love for you : it gi 
with no less ardour than at the moment of parting, which must be 
a happv omen of its permanent nature. When mere personal 
charms attract, the impression may be violent bat cannot be I 
ing, and it requires the perpetual presence of the object to keep 
it alive : but when the bea . rmnd, the soft and sweet disp 

tion, the amiable and lovable character embellished with inno- 
cence and cheerfulness are united to the attractions of personal 
bea defiance to time. Such, my dear Floride, are 

the arm* by which you have conquered, and it is by these the 
durability of your sovereign: Slished over your subject 

whom you hold in willir... itude. 

I am much involved in business at present. Court com- 
mences in two weeks, and in a week the election for Cong~ 
wiH take place. My opponent is Gen. Elmore of Laurer 
but it is thought that I will succeed by a large majority. As 
soon as the result is known I will inform you. Write me be- 
3U leave Xew Port I pleasant journey home. 

May God preserve you. Adieu my love : my heart's delight. 1 






Mrs. Colhoun came South by water this year 181c and 
arrived at Charleston in Xovember, to find her daughters lc 
on hand and awaiting them. Well may CoL Starke write 
that heaven had been kind to him. Xot only was the attrac: 

man of his choice coming home to become soon his 

ie. but his career at the bar had been most brilliant, he had 

• ed during r - -ions in th : Leg -'ature with marked 

sue nd he had very recently been triumphantly elected a 

membc- : -he Twelfth Congress at the early age of twer 



12 Gen. Jobs A. Ehnore, a Re ruluti onary officer, father of Franklin H. 

alreadr explained {mmte, a * 
spelling in Calhoan's letters will be 



LEGAL CAREER 99 

For some reason, it had been desired, — possibly because of 
the youth of the girl, — to keep the engagement a secret, and 
we have seen the far-distant Calhoun hesitating at first even 
to send a double-weight letter to Mrs. Colhoun for fear of 
thus betraying the secret that he had two correspondents in 
that same family at Newport. At a later date, however, he did 
unbosom himself by writing to the object of his flame. The 
affair, as was to be expected, was none the less suspected at 
his home. 

In the immediate family of the coming Mrs. Calhoun, the 
secret was possibly too well kept, and was long quite unknown 
to her brother, James Edward, a boy of fourteen. This led 
to an event that he narrated years afterwards to Col. Starke. 
The latter reminds us that intercourse between young persons 
of different sexes was not so free in the days of Calhoun's 
youth as it was even later in his time, and then goes on to say 
that James Edward Colhoun told him that one day when out 
driving with his sister and Calhoun he was highly indignant to 
see his sister slyly kissed by the latter. Going to his mother, 
upon getting home, to report the awful event, — probably burst- 
ing with the importance of his information and fired with the 
jealous dignity that a boy of fourteen is likely to feel towards 
a sister several years his senior, — James Edward was aston- 
ished that neither surprise nor indignation was shown. It 
may be surmised that the wise mother at once enlightened the 
boy. 

The young couple were married on January 8, 181 1, at 
which date Calhoun was not yet twenty-nine years of age and 
his bride nearing nineteen. The wedding was said by James 
Edward Colhoun to have been a grand affair, — " an old-time 
wedding," — and he added that everybody was present. The 
bridal pair seems to have remained for a time at Mrs. Colhoun's 
plantation at Bonneau's Ferry, and later removed to a place 
named " Bath," — on the ridge between the Savannah and 
Little rivers, — which Calhoun had bought. It was not far 
from the site of the original Calhoun settlement, which was 
then occupied by the groom's brother Patrick. His letters 
have shown that he had wanted to buy and settle on the Savan- 



ioo LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

nah River but had been unable to secure a place at what he 
thought a fair price. 

This new home remained the young couple's residence for 
some years, and Calhoun expected to live there permanently. 
The two were in Charleston in the May following their mar- 
riage, and we may possibly secure some idea of the bride's 
simple bringing up from the fact that when she was induced 
one evening to visit the theatre with other members of her 
family, but without her husband, — who was possibly not 
willing to go to the theatre, — she seems to have been shocked 
at some of the sights she witnessed. Her still rather puri- 
tanically inclined husband wrote to Mrs. Colhoun that his wife 
was " not at all pleased ; and feels no inclination to renew her 
visit there. I was pleased to see that her good sense prevented 
her from being dazzled by the glare of the novelty." 

Calhoun and his wife were in Columbia for a time in the 
spring of 1811, and it may possibly be conjectured that he was 
still practising law to some extent, or at least winding up 
pending cases, though his letter of September 13, 1810, in- 
dicates that he was then already pretty well determined to give 
up the law after that fall. Col. Starke tells us 14 that Calhoun 
made a sufficient fortune during his few years at the bar to feel 
that he had a moderate competence, and emphasizes in this con- 
nection particularly his chancery practice as the source of this 
fortune. There is, too, a letter 15 of Calhoun himself, which 
possibly lends color to this view ; but it seems to me quite 
impossible to suppose that in the two or three short years dur- 
ing which he practised law he could have earned a life-long 
competence, even though moderate. It is far more likely that 
his inheritance from his father was larger than we are aware 
of, or that it had appreciated in value materially from the 
increase of population in the neighborhood. 

Nor must it be forgotten that he married a woman who is 
described as an heiress. Her fortune added to his may well 
have placed the couple in very easy circumstances, especially 

14 " Sketch," p. 88: "A few years of law practice, particularly in the 
chancery court, had enabled Mr. Calhoun to accumulate that moderate 
competency to which he aspired." 

* B Letter of April 6, 1809, to Mrs. Colhoun, 



LEGAL CAREER 101 

as it is known that he inherited land from his father. A 
Southern landowner of that day, with the means to cultivate 
his plantation, had probably a moderate competence easily 
within reach. The marriage brought him, too, social position 
in lower Carolina, and in this way was, beyond doubt, a ma- 
terial aid to him in his political career. 

Everything tends to show that the union between Calhoun 
and his cousin was a most happy one. He is to be found 
watching over her with devotion at all times, in the small as 
well as the larger things of life. During the first year of their 
married life, when she suffered the usual ills of coming ma- 
ternity, his letters to her mother tell plainly enough the story 
of the kindness shown to his wife. And when, in a few years, 
they lost with appalling suddenness their second child, — Flo- 
ride, born in 1814, — he evidently strove hard, though with 
little success, to console the grief of the mother, bereft of her 
child within the short space of one day. In 181 1, within a 
year of his marriage, duty to the public demanded of him 
that he should hurry away to the meeting of Congress, and he 
was forced to leave Mrs. Calhoun very soon after she was 
delivered of their first child. Their second child, too, was born 
in February, 1814, during another of his attendances upon 
Congress, far away in Washington. 

The long absence of the husband from home, upon these 
trips of ambition and public duty, tried him severely, and his 
letters betray plainly enough the homesickness and the constant 
longing he felt for his wife and young children. They had, 
as will hereafter be shown, no less than nine children. 



CHAPTER VI 

ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC AFFAIRS 

Legislature — Elected to House of Representatives — 

Personal Glimpses. 

It will be necessary now to go back a few years, in order 
to pick up some of the threads that have been passed by for 
the moment. 

Calhoun was still a student at law and was about to go 
up to Abbeville, — with a view to his admission to the bar and 
to being in the higher country during the heated term, — when, 
on June 22, 1807, an outrage was perpetrated upon our neu- 
trality of which it is well-nigh impossible to conceive 
in our sturdy adolescence of to-day. On that day the British 
war vessel Leopard fired on the American man-of-war Chesa- 
peake just outside the capes of Chesapeake Bay, and soon 
forced the sadly-unprepared American to haul down her colors 
and submit to the indignity of being boarded by a British 
officer and sailors. These then had the American crew called 
on deck and took away with them four men alleged to be 
deserters from the British ship Melampus. 

The whole United States flared up at once, — as well it might, 
— and meetings were held far and wide to pledge support to 
the government in any steps that might be taken to vindicate 
the country from the wrong inflicted upon us. Calhoun had 
never much believed in the ultimate success of our restrictive 
system, 1 though he had given it his support. Others then 
and since have denounced Jefferson for the policy, but these 
critics have not made clear what other course was open to the 

1 " Autobiography," p. 10; Calhoun's speeches in the House of Repre- 
sentatives on June 24, 1812, and April 6, 1814. Annals of Congress, 
Twelfth Congress, First Session, Part II, 1811-12, pp. 1539 ct scq., and 
Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, Vol. II, 1813-14, p. 1963. 

102 



ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC AFFAIRS 103 

President under the circumstances prevailing at that time in 
our callow country, with its parts only half knit together and 
one large section loudly threatening disunion. Probably, the 
Struggle for Neutrality was necessary for us, — much as 
teething and a thousand other bodily ills are necessary, — and 
it may at least be safely said that none but the very boldest 
Executive would have dared to plunge this new-born land into 
such madness as war with the Great Britain of that day sooner 
than the Republican party did. 

A meeting was held at Abbeville as well as a thousand other 
places to promise popular support to the sorely tried Jefferson ; 
and it was here that Calhoun's public career may be said to have 
begun. He was selected, the " Autobiography '"' tells us, to 
prepare the resolutions for the meeting, and was then asked 
to present them in a speech. It was the first time in his life 
on which he addressed a public assemblage of his countrymen. 
The speech is of course lost, as are the resolutions as well, and 
we can do no more than imagine the scene, of which Col. 
Starke 2 writes as follows : 

Standing one or two inches above six feet, the gaunt, erect 
young man, then in the twenty-sixth year of his age, presented 
that marked visage known to many in the audience, and for the 
first time flashed upon them the intense light from those dark 
brown eyes. 

About one year later he was nominated for the House of 
Representatives in the State Legislature from his home dis- 
trict of Abbeville, and according to the " Autobiography " 
was easily elected at a time when his profession was far from 
popular, and no member of it had been sent to the body for 
many years. Abbeville was entitled to three members in the 
House, and those chosen at this election were Calhoun, Joseph 
Black and Peter Gibert. :! The election was held probably soon 

2 " Sketch," p. 85. 

3 " Autobiography," p. 7. The Charleston " Times " of October 25, 
1808. The " Autobiography " reads that Calhoun was first elected to the 
legislature "at the next election" after the meeting in regard to the 
Chesapeake outrage (the accurate date of which is unknown), and Cal- 
houn says, in his letter of September 8, 1828, to Theodore Lyman (" Cor- 
respondence," pp. 266-269), that he was elected to the Legislature the year 



104 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

after the middle of October, 1808, and the newly chosen body 
met on the 28th day of the following November. 4 

It was an important period in the history of South Caro- 
lina, for at this time was finally enacted the well-known com- 
promise which at length composed the bickerings between 
the inhabitants of the upper country and those of the coastal 
plains. These latter, having become possessed of full power 
at a date when the upper country was an empty wilderness, 
long refused to admit the steadily increasing population of 
the new region to an effective share in the government, and 
many were the contests over this subject. At the final session 
of the preceding Legislature, in June, 1808, before Calhoun's 
election, the compromise in question had been approved by 
overwhelming majorities, had been subsequently advertised 3 
in accordance with the constitutional requirement, and was now 
to come up before the newly chosen legislature and had to be 
approved by it also, with certain specified formalities, by 
majorities of at least two-thirds in each House in order to 
become effective. It was actually passed shortly after the 
opening of the session by unanimous votes in both branches. 8 

The compromise, which was thus made a part of the con- 
stitution of South Carolina, preserved the power of the low 
country in the Senate, while the House was remodelled on a 
new basis. It was made to consist of one hundred and twenty- 
four members, of whom sixty-two were allotted to white popu- 
lation and sixty-two to taxation, and an estimate was directed 
to be taken every ten years both of population and of the 
amount of taxes paid by each district. 7 Under this provision 

he was admitted to the bar, but this must be an error of memory, unless 
possibly it refers to his admission to the chancery bar, which Col. Starke 
says was in 1808. The MSS. original journals of the Legislature show 
conclusively that he was first a member at the November-December ses- 
sion, 1808. 
* The Charleston " Courier," December 3, 1808. 

5 The Charleston " Courier," June 29, and September 13 and 28, 1808. . 

6 The Charleston " Courier," December 13, 15, and 17, 1808. The con- 
stitutional amendment so passed is printed in Cooper's " Statutes at Large," 
Vol. V, p. 566. . 

7 In his " Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United 
States" ("Works," Vol. I, pp. 404. 405), Calhoun writes that this pro- 
vision "guards effectively against the abuse of the taxing power. The 
effect of such abuse would be, to give to the portion of the State which 



ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC AFFAIRS 105 

Calhoun tells us 8 that the upper section gained " a preponder- 
ance equally decisive in the House of Representatives." 

The amendment, in the enactment of which Calhoun thus had 
a hand in early life, evidently struck him as very wise, and he 
highly commends the action of the low country in giving 
up its rights under the constitution as well as that of the 
upper country in yielding the complete control that would have 
come to it from a government based on numbers only. Here 
he found one of the clearest and best working instances of that 
system of " concurrent majorities," 9 which he advocated 10 in 
so many other instances during his public career, as the high- 
est political wisdom and far superior to any system based on 
the tyranny of a mere numerical majority. Deep impressions 
are often made on a man's lifelong beliefs by some event of 
his early years, and such was probably the case with Calhoun 
in this instance; but it seems clear to the writer that the 
tendency of the world since that time has been away from Cal- 
houn's views in this as well as some other matters. 

At the same time that Calhoun went to the Legislature, in 

might be overtaxed, an increased weight in the government proportional 
to the excess ; and to diminish, in the same proportion, the weight of the 
section which might exempt itself from an equal share of the burden of 
taxation." 

8 Ibid., p. 404; and see 400-406. Mr. Schafer ("Sectionalism and 
Representation in South Carolina," printed in " Annual Report of Amer- 
ican Historical Association for 1900," Vol. I, pp. 237 et seq.) thinks that 
Calhoun's explanation is not altogether accurate, and that the coastal 
region was still able in reality to dominate in the lower House, too, 
through the intermediate black belt's having become part and parcel of 
the lower country (pp. 433-437). Calhoun lived, however, at the time, 
and saw the machinery work ; nor have there been many observers more 
competent to decide than he. His final statement upon the subject in his 
" Constitution and Government of the United States," was, moreover, 
written in his last days and not printed until after his death. " Works," 
Vol. I, " Advertisement," p. vi. 

9 When Webster asserts in debate (Congressional Debates, Vol. IX, 
Part 1, 1832-33, p. 576) his difficulty in understanding what Calhoun meant 
by this expression, must we put this down solely to the none too honest 
skill of an advocate, who hopes thus to throw doubt on the contention of 
his opponent, or can we suppose that for a moment that intellectual giant 
actually failed to understand a system as old as that of England, to which 
the analytical mind of Calhoun applied a term possibly new? 

10 The idea is also largely treated in the posthumous " Disquisition on 
Government," "Works," Vol. I, pp. 1-107; and see also the posthumous 
" Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United Statet," 
ibid., pp. 400-406. 



106 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

1808, Langdon Cheves also entered upon his service in that 
capacity. William Lowndes, on the other hand, was not then 
a member, though he had been of the prior Legislature. With 
both of these promising characters, Calhoun was destined 
shortly to be associated in a wider sphere. He was early in 
the session appointed a member of the very large Committee 
of the House on Privileges and Elections, and was also a mem- 
ber of the far more important one on Judiciary. 11 Early in 
the session, Cheves presented " a bill for the better arrange- 
ment for the sittings of the court of equity, for the establish- 
ment of appeals for the same and for other purposes," and 
Calhoun was appointed one of a committee of six to which it 
was referred. A bill was later passed by both branches, in 
pursuance of Cheves's suggestion, and became a law ; and the 
next year a law was enacted for the more easy and expeditious 
administration of justice. 12 

It is worthy of note, as showing the temper in South Caro- 
lina at that day in regard to federal affairs and the threatening 
foreign complications, that the Legislature preceding the one 
in which Calhoun served, had in December, 1807, made an ap- 
propriation of $80,000 to arm the militia. 13 During his term 
of service, too, laws were passed to reorganize the militia. — 
aiming at uniformity of discipline, — as well as others to in- 
corporate companies for navigating their rivers. I know of 
no actual evidence of any part taken by Calhoun on these 
measures, but the latter at least may well have had the 
active aid of the future author of the " Report on Roads and 
Canals." 

It may be surmised, too, that he had a hand in the appoint- 
ment of DeSaussure as Chancellor of the State. DeSaussure 
was a strong Federalist, while the Legislature was so over- 
whelmingly Republican that the Federalists took almost no part 
in the proceedings. When, however, in 1808 the selection of 

"The "Courier" of December 3, and "Times" of December 6, 1808. 
The name is occasionally spelled Colhoun, and the " Times " of December 
6 seems to show that there were two members of the family in the 
House. 

12 The " Courier " of December 13 and 21, 1808. Cooper's " Statutes 
at Large," Vol. V, pp. 565, 595- 

13 The "Courier" of December 28, 1807. 



ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC AFFAIRS 107 

a Chancellor became necessary, the party in power possibly had 
difficulty to find an available person for the position from their 
own ranks, and DeSaussure writes that old friendships with 
a number of members belonging to the opposite party led 
to their selection of him. 14 It was so admirable a choice, that 
if, as seems likely from Calhoun's earlier relations with 
DeSaussure, he had any part in the selection, the fact should 
be mentioned in his biography. 

On December 15, 1808, he was appointed by Governor Dray- 
ton one of the aides on his staff with the rank of Lieutenant 
Colonel. 15 So far as I know, this was the only position of a 
military character ever held by him. 

Calhoun sat also during the second session held in No- 
vember and December, i8o9, lc but I have not found any actual 
record of his doings at this session. He writes in his " Auto- 
biography " 17 that during his service he was instrumental in 
the passage of several important changes in the law of the 
State, and I think that enough has been already said to show 
that these claims of his campaign biography of 1843 are prob- 
ably none too strong. ls It seems that he was independent, as 
was to be expected from one of his race, and that his vote was 
by no means to be controlled by any one but himself. Starke 
tells us 19 that Burr's son-in-law, Joseph Alston, was a mem- 
ber at the same time and wanted to bring Calhoun into his 
clique, but soon found his efforts unavailing and remarked 

14 Letter of DeSaussure printed in Edmund Quincy's " Life of Josiah 
Quincy," pp. 190, 191. 

15 " City Gazette and Daily Advertiser " of January 4, 1809, as reproduced 
in "The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine," Vol. II, 
(1901), p. 163. 

16 The Charleston " City Gazette and Daily Advertiser " of Decemher 
13, 1809. MSS. Legislative Journals at Columbia. 

« P. 8. 

18 In 1808 he cast some vote which Fitzwilliam Byrdsall wrote him on 
November 6, 1842, ("Correspondence," p. 861) was "a glorious democratic 
fact in your favor" and shows that "you were in 1808 what [Van Buren] 
was not in 1821." Calhoun had written to Byrdsall of this vote but would 
not allow its publication. I am quite unable to ascertain what it was. 
Possibly his vote for Madison for President was referred to. 

19 "Sketch," p. 87. B. F. Perry, too ("Reminiscences of Public Men," 
p. 92), tells this same story. Joseph Alston was Speaker of the House 
during Calhoun's first session, at least. Cooper's " Statutes at Large," Vol. 
V, p. 564. 



108 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

to a friend : "lam afraid I shall find this long, gawky fellow 
from Abbeville hard to manage." 

One story is told in the " Autobiography " of Calhoun's do- 
ings during his short career in the State Legislature, — a story 
that may serve to illustrate a faculty that we shall find clearly 
enough shown again in later and sadder years. Calhoun un- 
doubtedly had his foibles, and made awful human blunders ; but 
at times his mind seemed to cut its way through the most in- 
tricate circumstances, and he would then foretell events in a 
fashion little short of startling. I think this usually hap- 
pened when there was some great underlying principle at hand, 
the effect of which he was able to foresee with a mental grasp 
shared by few men, and his mind, realizing this one vital 
element of coming events, would follow it out, — to at least 
some of its results, — with relentless power. 

It may be surmised that in these cases in which Calhoun saw 
so much further ahead than did his fellows he found a nat- 
ural satisfaction in turning out to be right. He was apparently 
not devoid of pride of intellect, and doubtless this is the reason 
why this particular instance finds a place in his " Autobi- 
ography." 

He tells us 20 that 

... It was not long after he took his seat [in the State Legis- 
lature] before he distinguished himself. Early in the session 
an informal meeting of the Republican portion of the members 
was called to nominate candidates for the places of President 
and Vice-President of the United States. Mr. Madison was 
nominated for the presidency without opposition. When the 
nomination for the vice-presidency was presented, Mr. Calhoun 
embraced the occasion to present his opinion in reference to com- 
ing events, as bearing on the nomination. He reviewed the 
state of the relations between the United States and Great Brit- 
ain and France, the two great belligerents which were then 
struggling for mastery, and in their struggle trampling on the 
rights of neutrals, and especially ours; he touched on the re- 
strictive system which had been resorted to by the government to 
protect our rights, and expressed his doubt of its efficacy, and 

20 " Autobiography," p. 7. 



ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC AFFAIRS 109 

the conviction that a war with Great Britain would be unavoid- 
able. " It was," he said, " in this state of things of the ut- 
most importance that the ranks of the Republican party should 
be preserved undisturbed and unbroken by faction or discord." 
He then adverted to the fact, that a discontented portion of 
the party had given unequivocal evidence of rallying round the 
name of the venerable vice-president, George Clinton (whose re- 
nomination was proposed), and of whom he spoke highly; but 
he gave it as his opinion, that should he be nominated and re- 
elected, he would become the nucleus of all the discontented 
portion of the party, and thus make a formidable division in 
its ranks should the country be forced into war. These per- 
sons, he predicted, would ultimately rally round De Witt Clin- 
ton, the nephew, whom he described as a man of distinguished 
talents and aspiring disposition. To avoid the danger, he sug- 
gested the name of John Langdon, of New Hampshire, of whom 
he spoke highly both as to talents and patriotism. 

It was Mr. Calhoun's first effort in a public capacity. The 
manner and matter excited great applause ; and when it is recol- 
lected that these remarks preceded the declaration of war more 
than three years, and how events happened according to his 
anticipations, it affords a striking proof of that sagacity, at so 
early a period, for which he has since been so much distinguished. 
It at once gave him a stand among the most distinguished mem- 
bers of the Legislature. 

The pay of members of the South Carolina Legislature at 
this time was " a sum not exceeding three dollars a day dur- 
ing their attendance on, going to, and returning from the legis- 
lature at the rate of thirty miles per day." 21 Nor did the sit- 
tings last long. Indeed, Calhoun's two sessions made up to- 
gether only nine weeks 22 and afforded thus but scant experi- 
ence for the highly important positions he was soon to hold. 
He must undoubtedly have shown marked capacities during 
this short time, or he would hardly have received his next pro- 
motion. In the spring or summer of 18 10, he was nominated 
for the House of Representatives in Congress. His opponent 

21 Statute No. 1903 of 19th December, 1807, confirming a prior act of 
1805, the constitutionality of which seems to have been doubted. Cooper's 
" Statutes at Large," Vol. V, p. 546. 

22 " Autobiography," p. 12. 



no LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

was Gen. John A. Elmore, who had, according to Col. Starke, 
been nominated by those timid souls who feared the coming 
war and still remembered the dreadful days when " Tarleton's 
red dragoons had ridden over the State." Calhoun's resolu- 
tions at the Abbeville meeting upon the Leopard outrage doubt- 
less pointed him out as the natural opponent of such a nomina- 
tion. He is said by Col. Starke to have conducted a most 
active canvass, and it was early in the day all over with his 
opponent. The world has often been said to belong to the 
young, and we doubtless have in this instance another example 
of youthful hope and dash triumphing over the timid hesita- 
tions of age. 

Even in July Calhoun wrote to Mrs. Colhoun of there being 
" no doubt " of his election to Congress in the fall, and his 
" Autobiography " says that he was elected by " an overwhelm- 
ing majority." The strongly Federalist Charleston Courier, 
too, reported on October 23, 1810, that there was "no doubt 
of the election of this gentleman." The district for which 
he was chosen was composed of Abbeville, Laurens and New- 
berry, and it seems 23 that his cousin, Joseph Calhoun, who 
had represented the district during two Congresses, retired in 
his favor. 

The Twelfth Congress, to which Calhoun had thus been 
elected in the autumn of 18 10, at the early age of twenty-eight 
years, met, in pursuance of the call of the President, on No- 
vember 4, 181 1, and on November 6 Calhoun took his seat 
for the first time in the federal councils, where for the better 
part of forty years, he continued to hold a distinguished posi- 
tion in one department or another. 

Before we enter upon the absorbing turmoil of the politics 
of that day, however, it will be well to devote a little space 
to other events of the period which throw light upon his 
character. It has been seen that he arrived in Washington two 
days after the opening of the session. But even so, he had 
been obliged to leave his young wife a very short time after 
the birth of their first child, Andrew. The following letters 

23 This fact is stated in the "Autobiography," p. 23, and I believe by 
other writers. 



ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC AFFAIRS in 

from him will show how this had told upon him as well as give 
some insight into the interest he took in other matters than poli- 
tics about this period. 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoun, at Charleston. 

Washington 21 st Dec r 181 1. 

Dear Mother, I received last week your affectionate letter 
of the 20 th of the last month. It came the same day with 
Florides ; tho' hers is dated on the 26 th . It contained the first di- 
rect information I had from home; and relieved me from a 
load of anxiety. I left Floride and our little son at so critical 
a period, that I almost felt an alarm at hearing from home for 
fear that all was not well. I feared that her anxiety of mind 
at my leaving her might injure her health; situated as she was; 
and I am sure I have great cause to be thankful that she has 
entirely recovered. I am as comfortably fixed here as I could 
be; and have nothing to render me uneasy but my solicitude 
for those I have left behind. Our society is delightful. This 
place is quite gay, during the session ; but I do not partici- 
pate in it much myself. You know I never had much inclina- 
tion to such enjoyment. I am invited to a ball to the French 
minister's 2i on monday next ; and to dine with him on Christ- 
mas day ; but for political reasons have declined his invitation. 
I do not think at this time when a war is expected with Eng- 
land that much intimacy should exist with the minister of her 
rival ; particularly as our opponents accuse us with partiality 
towards France. 

I hope you will impress on Floride the necessity of taking 
sufficient exercise when the weather will permit. Nothing is 
so conducive to health ; and I think she is rather disinclined to 
it. Let me hear from you often. I shall not be backward in 
answering tho' I have a great many letters to write. Remem- 
ber me to the family and all friends. 

To Mrs. John C. Calhoun, at St. John's, S. Ca. 

Washington, I st March 1812 
You will no doubt, my dearest Floride, be much gratified 
and suprised to find the bearer of this letter in St. Johns. 
Mr. Cooper called on me this morning in company of Mr. Tal- 

24 J. M. P. Serurier. 



ii2 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

mage and informed me that he was on his way to the south- 
ward. . . . 

I dreamed all night the last night of being home with you ; and 
nursing our dear son ; and regretted when I awoke to find it a 
dream. I was in hopes that the morning's mail would bring me a 
letter from you ; but was disappointed. It is near a month since 
I had one. I learned by a letter from Mr. Pickens a few days 
since that you were all well. 

Remember me to our mother and John. 

To Mrs. Floride Colhoun, at Charleston. 

Washington, 23 d Nov r . 1812. 

Dr Mother, I am induced to write you more from that senti- 
ment of respect and affection which I hope ever to entertain for 
you, than any particular information which I wish to communi- 
cate. My esteem for you has rather been strengthened, than 
abated, by the present intimate tie which through our dear Floride 
and little Andrew subsists between us. Your deportment long be- 
fore our connection was such as to merit my warmest affection. 
Floride's letter to me mentions the fine health of Andrew and 
his disposition to feed. I think it would be advisable for her to 
wean him as soon as possible. You however will be the best 
judge. I fear to continue him longer at the breast will be 
neither for his or her health. 

If Floride bears my absence as badly as I do hers, she must 
occasionally be very impatient. I know you will not fail to 
keep her as cheerful as possible. I often look forward with im- 
patience for the time of my return. 

I expect we shall have a warm and important Session. We 
shall have to encounter every impediment that opposition can 
throw in the way. 

If rice is a good price I would advise you to sell. The present 
prospect is in favour of its keeping up and being high ; but the 
commercial world is at present so uncertain, that no one can 
anticipate the change. I would be glad to hear from you. 

The journey to Washington was at that time long and tedi- 
ous. To traverse the two Carolinas and Virginia took from 
ten clays' to three weeks' time, — according to the speed of the 
conveyance and state of the roads, — and no small risk of 
serious accident was ahvays incurred. Numbers of great riv- 



ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC AFFAIRS 113 

ers had to be passed on the way, and these were often swollen 
by rains and could then only be traversed on flat-boats poled 
by negroes. Breakdowns and upsets were of course by no 
means infrequent incidents, and awful taverns awaited the 
traveller at every stop. Different routes were followed, but 
they all presented merely a choice of evils, and Lowndes, at 
least, went in some instances by water, by the Philadelphia 
packet. Calhoun drove in 1825 by way of Columbia, Camden, 
Cheraw, Fayette, Raleigh, Warrenton, and Richmond. 25 

Arrived in Washington, too, that great capital of the future 
was found to be inconvenient to a degree. The roads in and 
about it were unspeakable, and the accommodations so bad that, 
though Lowndes found them in December, 181 1, better than 
his imagination had painted, he yet wrote to his wife: " The 
comforts of a city are such in winter that I think I shall spend 
the next (if I come here at all) in Georgetown." And in 
181 5 Macon wrote his friend Nicholson, as an inducement 
to a visit : " I live at Mrs. Clark's in F. Street, not far east 
of the burnt treasury office. . . . The house is about middling, 
and I can I believe get a bed put in my room for you, if you 
should visit the city. Let me know a day beforehand, that 
the room may be fixed." 26 

Members often, or generally, lived in " messes," and such 
was Calhoun's home in the capital in 181 1 and again in 1815. 
Lowndes wrote in November of the earlier year that he was 
established with a pleasant company, which would probably 
consist of Mr. and Mrs. Cheves and two children, Mr. Clay, 
Mr. Calhoun, and possibly two other gentlemen. Of Cal- 
houn he said he had heard a very favorable character, and 
found him well-informed, easy in manners and amiable. " I 
like him already better than any member of our mess," he adds, 
and then goes on that, as theirs was certainly the strongest 
war mess in Congress, they excited some surprise and even 
suspicion by attending parties at the house of Mr. Foster, the 

25 " Calhoun Correspondence," p. 233. Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel's " Life 
and Times of William Lowndes," p. 82. 

26 Mrs. Ravenel's "William Lowndes," p. 91. Wm. E. Dodd's "Na- 
thaniel Macon," p. 302. John Quincy Adams's " Memoirs," Vol. IV, p. 74. 



ii4 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

British Minister. 27 But the discomforts of the capital were 
very petty trifles to these ardent youths, and the great problems 
that confronted them seem to have been merely an inspiration. 

27 Mrs. Ravenel's "William Lowndes," pp. 84-86; ill. Adams's 
"Memoirs," Vol. VI, p. 57. B. F. Perry ("Reminiscences of Public 
Men," p. 245) writes that Cheves, Clay, Calhoun, Lowndes, and Bibb of 
Kentucky boarded together, and that their mess was known as the " war 
mess." 



CHAPTER VII 

WAR WITH ENGLAND 

The House of Representatives in 1811 — The "War- 
Hawks " — Committee on Foreign Relations — Declaration 
of War — The Restrictive System and its Final Abandonment. 

In the House of Representatives of the Twelfth Congress 
was to be found a brilliant galaxy of young men from the 
South and new Southwest, among whom were Lowndes, 
Cheves, Grundy, Clay, and Calhoun. Of these, Clay had 
served a few years in the Senate and Cheves a part of the pre- 
ceding term in the House; but the rest were all new, and, as 
has been seen, Calhoun's legislative experience was only such 
as he had gained in the short space of nine weeks in the State 
Legislature. Webster had not yet reached the federal coun- 
cils, and was at this time and for a few years later still engaged 
at Rockingham and other places in fulminating against the 
federal government those bitter anathemas, which contrast so 
strangely with his later course. All the young members named 
were fired with the splendid hope of youth, and several were 
destined to leave an undying fame behind them. Most, or all, 
owed their advancement to a great extent to their course upon 
one single subject. 

The vital question of that day, far overshadowing all others, 
was and for some years had been the policy that should be fol- 
lowed by our new-born country in the war of giants which was 
then devastating the civilized world. Neutrals were hardly 
allowed to exist, and their rights were violated at every turn 
by the two main contestants, as for years they struggled des- 
perately for the mastery. When we look back to that day, 
the question most open to doubt is which of the two did us the 
worst wrongs. As soon as one would push the violations a 
step further, in the hope of gaining an inch upon his opponent, 

us 



n6 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

he was rapidly met by either a like or still more outrageous 
wrong done by the other, and long before 1811 the system 
had grown well-nigh intolerable. 

These questions had all come to be of vital moment during 
the preceding administration of Jefferson, and that peace- 
inclined statesman found himself confronted with awful ques- 
tions growing out of the most gigantic wars of modern times. 
It was the policy of Napoleon to close the whole continent of 
Europe against British trade, and it was equally the policy of 
England to shut off all trade with the continent, except that 
which she controlled. And in the efforts that the two con- 
testants made to accomplish these ends, our young country 
suffered far more than any other not actively engaged in the 
hostilities. Indeed, we may be said to have been the only 
neutral ; and in this fact lies one of the main motives impelling 
us to the course we long followed. The carrying trade of 
the world seemed to lie open before us, ready to be seized, and 
it was a prize of great value. 1 Our hardy seamen reaped vast 
profits for a time from our neutrality. A proper national 
cupidity, or rather a wise thriftiness, pointed never so clearly 
to the course for a young people to follow. And to this in- 
ducement of self-interest, ever so strong an incentive to na- 
tional action, must be added what has already been said, — that 
our union and nationality were still in the pulpy age of infancy, 
while all the beliefs of the party in power tended strongly to 
lead us to avoid entangling alliances and to look upon war 
as a serious menace to our institutions. 

No wonder that, under these circumstances, Jefferson began 
the Struggle for Neutrality. It is easy enough to-day, when 
our national fabric has grown as tough and solid as the bony 

1 Havne well said in his speech of April 30. 1824. on the tariff (Benton's 
"Abridgment," Vol. VII, p. 575): "The fact that from the commence- 
ment of the French Revolution to the fall of Napoleon, the United States 
occupied a neutral position, and enjoyed the privilege of monopolizing 
the carrying trade, and commanding for her breadstuffs the markets of 
the world, would sufficiently account, not only for the rapid growth and 
extraordinary- prosperity of our country, but also for the temporary de- 
pression which must result from the loss of these advantages. Our 
fields have almost literally been fertilized by the blood of Europe. We 
have fattened on the crimes of her tyrants and the sufferings of her 
people." 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 117 

frame of early manhood, to decry his course as pusillanimous 
and to say that he ought to have followed this or that other 
policy, but these carping critics of a time long gone by have 
an easy task in finding fault without responsibility and with 
little appreciation of the conditions of the day, while Jeffer- 
son and his successor acted under the highest responsibility 
and with the widest knowledge of surrounding circumstances. 
The effort was then made to avoid taking part in the wars 
of the period, and though it failed after a series of troublous 
years, no one can say that the course was not a wise one at 
the time, or even absolutely necessary to our existence. Cal- 
houn, who was not in general a believer in the restrictive sys- 
tem, tried a few years later to picture the reasons that led us 
to follow it. He said : 2 

The restrictive system sprung from an unusual state of things ; 
it was a pacific policy, arising from the extraordinary state of the 
world at the time we embarked in it — and of course was a tem- 
porary rather than a permanent policy. ... It originated at a 
moment when every power on the continent of Europe was arrayed 
against Great Britain, and no one country in Europe was then 
interested in the support or defence of neutral rights. There 
was scarcely a port in Europe, which at the time of our restrictive 
system was not occluded to British commerce. In this state of 
things, the United States, in order to avoid war, not having taken 
the resolution at that time to declare war, resorted to the restrictive 
system — resorted to it, because the extraordinary state of the 
European world presented a prospect that the strong pressure of 
this system on Great Britain might save the nation from a war 
into which we have since been reluctantly drawn. 

It is by no means clear, moreover, that the restrictive system 
was necessarily doomed to failure from the start. With all 
the continent of Europe closed to British commerce, our 
refusal to trade with her undoubtedly brought dreadful dis- 
tress upon her manufacturing interests and led to bitter com- 
plaints on the part of these against their own government. 
But, as the wars went on and Napoleon's colossal power began 
suddenly to totter under the mad course he followed, large 

2 Speech in the House of Representatives on April 6, 1814, upon Bill 
to Repeal the Embargo and Other Restrictive Measures. Annals of Con- 
gress, Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, 1813-14, Vol. II, pp. 1962, 1963. 



u8 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

parts of the continent of Europe broke away from him and 
started in to trade with Great Britain. This at once relieved 
the distress caused by our restrictive measures, and Calhoun, 
for one, saw how such a change of circumstances would lessen 
the pressure exerted by our course and thought 3 that true 
policy then called upon us to open our ports to neutral nations, 
which would soon, in his opinion, make common cause with us. 

Whether it might possibly have succeeded or not, the re- 
strictive system was palpably failing in the course of a few 
years, and peace-loving Madison in turn found himself face 
to face with the necessity of discovering some other course to 
follow. It was well-nigh impossible, however, to unite the 
country upon any single point relating to the subject. One 
question much discussed at that time, — as well as ever since, — 
was as to which of the great belligerents had inflicted the worst 
outrages upon us, but it is hard to understand how this can 
to-day be doubted. 

In the mere enforcement of utterly defenseless shipping 
rules, there was probably little choice between the two; but 
to this species of wrong the British added one other outrage 
of a most glaring and irritating kind. Their claim to stop 
American ships and impress into the British service such men 
as a roving captain, with a short crew, might choose to think 
were born in Great Britain, was not only the assertion of a 
right that no nation of power would submit to for a moment 
but was also sure to lead to interminable friction in its ad- 
ministration, even admitting the doctrine of permanent alle- 
giance, upon which it was based. And this doctrine was one 
that America could not possibly admit. Finally, add to im- 
pressment the high-handed attack upon the American man-of- 
war Chesapeake, and surely the British must be admitted to 
have gone even further in the system of wrongs inflicted upon 
us than did the French, with whom we had not quite so many 
points of contact. 

The result of all this was that, while a large number, — es- 
pecially in New England, — favored some sort of alliance with 
Great Britain, there was a growing sentiment in the country 
for a declaration of war against her. Dubbed by their op- 

8 Ibid., p. 1964. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND ng 

ponents " war-hawks," the leaders of this view were full of 
the inspiration and buoyancy of youth, and steadily grew in 
power and influence. They had in general supported the sys- 
tem of neutrality carried out by Jefferson and Madison, but 
only because any other course was impossible under the then 
circumstances. By the date of the Twelfth Congress, how- 
ever, public opinion in favor of war had ripened a good deal 
and the power and numbers of the war-hawks had vastly 
grown. They were indeed soon found to be in absolute con- 
trol in that body. On the very first ballot, one of the most 
ultra of them, Henry Clay, was elected Speaker by seventy- 
five votes to thirty-eight for Bibb of Georgia, the peace candi- 
date, and three for Macon. The President's Message, more- 
over, was in its general features warlike, though the opinion 
of the day seems to have been 4 that many of its expressions 
were ambiguous; and it thus led some to wonder what course 
was really intended to be followed. 

In the House of Representatives no possible room was left 
for doubt. Not only was Clay's election to the Speakership a 
perfectly clear indication, but the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions, of which it will shortly be seen that Calhoun was a 
member, early proposed measures 5 to fill the existing regi- 
ments and to raise ten thousand additional regulars, as well 
as to prepare the militia and fit out all public vessels. Bills 
for some of these purposes became laws, and soon the Consti- 
tution, the Cliesapeake, and the Adams were under process of 
preparation. These increases in the navy were hardly in ac- 
cordance with the traditions of Jefferson and the Republican 
party, but none the less the ardent youths who then guided 
its destiny were convinced of their absolute necessity and vio- 
lated so far the inherited beliefs of the past. They tried also 
to include in the Naval Bill a section to authorize ten new 
frigates, but failed to get it through the House. Cheves, the 
Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, was braced 

* Calhoun's " Autobiography," p. 9. 

3 Mr. Cralle thought that the report of the Committee on Foreign Re- 
lations, which recommended these measures, was drawn bv Calhoun ; " Ad- 
vertisement " to Vol. V of Calhoun's "Works." See the "Report" in 
ibid., pp. 1-7. 



120 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

up in this effort by Quincy 6 in the House, and Calhoun T and 
doubtless many of the war-hawks earnestly supported the 
measure. A bill to organize the militia upon a uniform plan 
also failed. 

Despite Calhoun's youth and lack of experience, he made his 
mark at once and it is doubtless true, as he writes, 8 that his 
reputation had preceded him. Otherwise, we should certainly 
not find him selected at the beginning of his first session to 
the second place on the vital Committee on Foreign Relations. 
Peter B. Porter, of New York, was chairman, and the other 
Republican members were Calhoun and Felix Grundy of 
Tennessee. The redoubtable John Randolph of Roanoke and 
Philip Barton Key from Maryland were the Federalists. 
Calhoun's responsibilities, too, were soon increased by the with- 
drawal of Porter from Congress and Calhoun's consequent 
advance to the chairmanship, as well as by a vote of the House, 
which charged his committee with many of the duties properly 
belonging to the Committee on Military Affairs. 9 

Calhoun's maiden speech was made on the fifth of Decem- 
ber, 1811, upon the pending bill for a new apportionment; and 
it is curious to find him already at this early day urging that 
adherence to principle and setting aside of the selfish interests 
of the moment which so often characterized him at a later 
period. I think, too, he allows his fancy to run away with him 
a little as to the dangerous consequences to flow from the 
course opposed to that which he was advocating; and here 
seems to me to be one more tendency of his career in general. 
But other portions of the speech were hardly in accord with 
what he would have said later as to home interests. The 
House had passed a bill upon the subject, but this had been 
amended in the Senate as to the ratio of numbers to compose a 
Representative district, and the pending question was whether 
the House should insist on its bill or concur in the Senate 

Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, First Session, Part I, 1811-12, 
pp. 949-68. Quincy is said by his biographer to have made this speech 
"at the suggestion of some of these [southern] members, and especially 
of Mr. Calhoun." Quincy's " Quincy," p. 242. 

7 " Autobiography," p. 1 1. 

» Ibid., p. 8. 

9 Ibid., p. 12. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 121 

amendment. It will be observed that of course the matter was 
one in which the Senate had no actual interest, its basis of 
membership being forever fixed by the fundamental law, and 
the constitutional provision as to the House being the sole 
judge of the qualifications and returns of its own members was 
thought by some to have an important bearing on the matter. 
Calhoun spoke as follows : 10 

Before the bill had gone to the Senate, it excited but very 
little interest with me. All that I had heard from gentlemen 
on every side convinced me that is was a squabble among the 
several States which should bear the loss of large fractions, 
rather than a serious division on principle, of one ratio in prefer- 
ence to another. Were I governed alone by fractions, I should 
not rise this day, nor oppose a concurrence with the Senate, from 
the pride of opinion ; for the ratio which the Senate have fixed, 
is in accordance with my vote on the original bill, although 37,000 
will leave my State with a less fraction unrepresented than 35,- 
000; but fractions are not my object. I am not here to repre- 
sent my State alone. I renounce the idea. And I will show, 
by my vote, that I contend for the interests of the whole people 
of this community. The present question, of concurring in the 
amendment of the Senate, seemed to be totally different, and 
much more important than the original one. As it now stands, 
it is a case of disagreement between the two Houses, and the 
contest is, which shall recede. A contest of this kind (on the 
census bill) was one of the most serious consequences to this 
House. The Senate, by persistence, must force this body either 
to adopt their ratio, or, if that cannot be effected, even annihilate 
this branch of the Legislature. I consider this a case of omis- 
sion in our excellent constitution. The Constitution makes this 
House the sole judge of the qualifications and returns of its own 
members. This is supposed to vest the power so exclusively in 
us, that a few days since in a debate on the contested election 
from Virginia, it was contended with much force of argument, that 
any law on this subject, as the Senate must participate in it, 
would be unconstitutional. . . . 

In the ordinary course of legislation, this [division of powers] 
furnished ample security. Far different on the census bill. Here 

10 Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, First Session, Part I, 1811-1-', 
pp. 404-406. 



122 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the whole is inverted. The vote of the Senate is no longer the 
means of protection to itself, but becomes a fatal means of as- 
sailing this House. What remedy do I propose? I propose a 
means in strict unison with the Constitution and furnished by 
itself. Let us act with a fixed determination: and not accede to 
the amendment of the Senate. That body, unaided by precedent 
and opposed by the spirit of the Constitution, must recede. Let 
us follow the example of the House of Commons in England, in 
relation to money bills, and the same result will follow — but by 
no means reverse that example. 

The Senate strengthened by precedent, will hereafter control 
us completely. What inducement can gentlemen have to make 
the surrender at this time? None can be weaker, than because 
some of the States have, by the ratio inserted in the Senate, 
small fractions, and one section of the Union has by it com- 
paratively gained. Will gentlemen for this inconsiderable gain 
make so great a sacrifice? Particularly those from large States, 
who are the greatest gainers by large fractions? For this paltry 
gain, more apparent than real, which can last for but ten years, 
they surrender a principle of the most vital importance to them. 
Mr. Speaker, I wish the task of defending this important point 
had fallen to abler hands. I feel all that embarrassment which 
a young man, not much accustomed to public speaking, must 
necessarily experience the first time, before such an audience and 
in a place so trying to the voice as this hall. I shall be happy, 
if in the midst of my embarrassments I have been intelligible 
and have expressed myself with sufficient caution on so delicate 
a point. 

The House refused at this stage to concur in the Senate 
amendments, but the Senate was very positive and a conference 
committee had to report their inability to agree. The House 
then receded from its disagreement to the amendments by a 
vote of 72 to 62 " after much debate," which is not, however, 
reported. Calhoun adhered to his opinion and voted Nay. 
The Senate has generally, I understand, in recent years silently 
conceded to the House the regulation of the apportionment 
after the census, but there have been instances to the con- 
trary and it may be surmised that there will be others. Such 
a right in one House absolutely dependent on the mere ac- 
quiescence of the other is highly unsubstantial, and, at least, 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 123 

long practice alone can establish it as a principle. None the 
less, it is to be remembered that Calhoun's maiden speech was 
in regard to a difficult question of constitutional construction 
and that the views he maintained seem to be on the way to 
acceptance. On the re-apportionment after the census of 
1840, while in the Senate, he still recognized this earlier belief 
of his and said that " in fixing a ratio of apportionment, they 
ought to have very great respect for the decisions of the House, 
if they were assured the House had deliberately resolved upon 
a particular ratio [but in this case he thought that] he would 
be acting with a due regard to the wishes of that body, by 
giving them an opportunity to review and reconsider the 
matter." " 

From the beginning of the session, and more especially after 
his advancement to the chairmanship of the Committee on 
Foreign Relations, Calhoun occupied a position of great 
prominence and was active upon all the measures that led up 
to the war and had to do with its prosecution. He must have 
been closely in the confidence of the administration at all 
times, and was repeatedly their defender on the floor of the 
House. When the President's Message at the opening of the 
session came in, that part of it which related to foreign affairs 
was, in accordance with custom, referred to the Committee on 
Foreign Relations. And then at once the members of that 
committee, or at least its action, was most closely scrutinized 
by an anxious and expectant public. The next move in the 
vital question of War or Peace lay in their hands. 

They reported early in December, recommending various 
measures of preparation for war, — some of which have been 
mentioned already, — and out of their suggestions arose quite 
an extensive debate upon the general subject. This was of 
course opened by the chairman, Porter, who was followed 
by Grundy on the same side. The erratic and very dangerous 
John Randolph of Roanoke next spoke in opposition, and was 
answered by Johnson of Kentucky and Wright of Maryland. 
Their speeches were delivered on December 10, and Calhoun 

11 " Congressional Globe," Twenty-Seventh Congress, Second Session, 
PP- 538, 540, 545- Ibid., Appendix, p. 438. 



i2 4 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

then announced, — doubtless in accordance with pre-arrange- 
ment by leading men, — his wish to support the report of the 
committee of which he was a member; but moved an adjourn- 
ment on account of the lateness of the hour. He tells us that 
this discussion " from the beginning excited profound interest, 
both in the body and the crowded audience daily assembled in 
the lobby and galleries, and this interest had increased as the 
discussion advanced. It was Mr. Calhoun's first speech in 
Congress, except a few brief remarks on the Apportionment 
Bill. The trial was a severe one ; expectation was high. The 
question was of the greatest magnitude, and he to whom he 
had to reply, a veteral statesman of unsurpassed eloquence." 

It was certainly a great trial for a young man not yet twen- 
ty-nine, — who had not brushed up much against leading men 
and whose only public experience consisted of a few weeks 
in his State Legislature, — to have to answer the fiery and 
often brutal Randolph, and it may well be that Calhoun had 
many a nervous moment until he had acquitted himself of 
his task on December 12th, two days later. He writes that 
when he closed " he was greeted by the great body of the party 
for his successful effort, and thenceforward took rank with 
the ablest and most influential members of the body." 

The press of the day, too, spoke in high terms of his speech, 
Ritchie of the Richmond Enquirer comparing him to Fox and 
recognizing in him " one of the master-spirits who stamp their 
names upon the age in which they live," besides descanting on 
his power of " felling down the errors of his opponents with 
the club of Hercules." 12 The strained eloquence of this com- 
mentator may excite a smile, but it is plain beyond peradven- 
ture that the speech was a great success and served to intro- 
duce to the public another leading statesman in the ranks of 
the war-hawks. It was in part as follows: 

Mr. Speaker: I understand the opinion of the Committee 
of Foreign Relations differently from what the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Randolph) has stated to be his impression. I 
certainly understood that committee as recommending the meas- 
ures now before the House as a preparation for war. . . . Sir, 

12 For matters quoted from Ritchie, see " Autobiography," pp. 9, 10. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 125 

I might prove the war, should it ensue, justifiable, by the express 
admissions of the gentleman from Virginia; and necessary, by 
facts undoubted and universally admitted, such as that gentle- 
man did not pretend to controvert. The extent, duration, and 
character of the injuries received; the failure of those peaceful 
means heretofore resorted to for the redress of our wrongs, is my 
proof that it is necessary. Why should I mention the impress- 
ment of our seamen; depredation on every branch of our com- 
merce, including the direct export trade, continued for years, and 
made under laws which professedly undertake to regulate our 
trade with other nations; negotiation resorted to time after 
time, till it is become hopeless ; the restrictive system persisted in 
to avoid war, and in the vain expectation of returning justice? 
The evil still grows, and in each succeeding year swells in extent 
and pretension beyond the preceding. . . . The first argument of 
the gentleman which I shall notice, is the unprepared state of the 
country. Whatever weight this argument might have, in a ques- 
tion of immediate war, it surely has little in that of preparation 
for it. If our country is unprepared, let us remedy the evil as 
soon as possible. . . . But it may be, and I believe was said, 
that the nation will not pay taxes, because the rights violated are 
not worth defending, or that the defence will cost more than 
the profit. Sir, I here enter my most solemn protest against this 
low and " calculating avarice " entering this hall of legislation. 
It is only fit for shops and counting-houses, and ought not to 
disgrace the seat of sovereignty by its squalid and vile appear- 
ance. Whenever it touches a sovereign power, the nation is 
ruined. It is too short-sighted to defend itself. It is an unprom- 
ising spirit, always ready to yield a part to save the balance. 
It is too timid to have in itself the laws of self-preservation. It 
is never safe but under the shield of honor. Sir, I only know 
of one principle to make a nation great, to produce in this coun- 
try not the form but real spirit of union, and that is to protect 
every citizen in the lawful pursuit of his business. He will then 
feel that he is backed by the Government; that its arm is his 
arms; and will rejoice in its increased strength and prosperity. 
Protection and patriotism are reciprocal. This is the road that 
all great nations have trod. Sir, I am not versed in this cal- 
culating policy; and will not, therefore, pretend to estimate in 
dollars and cents the value of national independence, or national 
affection. I cannot dare to measure, in shillings and pence, the 



126 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

misery, the stripes, and the slavery of our impressed seamen ; nor 
even to valne our shipping, commercial and agricultural losses, 
under the Orders in Council and the British system of block- 
ade. . . . 

Sir, . . . the gentleman from Virginia attributes preparation 
for war to everything but its true cause. He endeavored to find 
it in the probable rise in hemp. He represents the people of 
the Western States as willing to plunge the country into war 
for such base and precarious motives. I will not reason on this 
point. I see the cause of their ardor, not in such base motives, 
but in their known patriotism and disinterestedness. No less mer- 
cenary is the reason which he attributes to the Southern States. 
He says that the non-importation has reduced cotton to nothing, 
which has produced a feverish impatience. Sir, I acknowledge 
the cotton of our farms is worth but little ; but not for the cause 
assigned by the gentleman from Virginia. The people of that 
section do not reason as he does; they do not attribute it to the 
efforts of their Government to maintain the peace and inde- 
pendence of their country ; they see in the low price of the pro- 
duce the hand of foreign injustice; they know well, without the 
market to the Continent, the deep and steady current of supply 
will glut that of Great Britain ; they are not prepared for the 
colonial state to which again that Power is endeavoring to re- 
duce us. The manly spirit of that section of our country will 
not submit to be regulated by any foreign Power. 13 . . . 

When measures of preparation were so openly making, it 
was likely that war was not far distant. The ardor for it 
grew, too, under the powerful impulse of our war-hawks, 
while the dangers vanished to nought in their bubbling juven- 
ile fancies. On May 6, upon a petition for the repeal of the 
embargo, Calhoun was evidently quite carried away by his 
feelings and said, " So far from being unprepared, sir, I be- 
lieve that, in four weeks from the time that a declaration of 
war is heard on our frontier, the whole of Upper and part 
of Lower Canada will be in our possession." 14 

What a rude awakening must not Hull's surrender and our 
other disasters have been to such youthful exuberance! The 

13 Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, First Session, Part I, 1811-12, 
pp. 476-483. . T o 

14 Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, First Session, Part II, 1811-12, 

P- 1397. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 127 

sad disillusions had their effect, and in less than two years 
this ardent youth, chastened by experience, is to be found ex- 
pressing his sorrow " to see on our side considerable inactiv- 
ity, whilst on the side of the enemy we behold vigilance well 
worthy of our imitation." 15 But at the same time, he and 
the other leaders were untiring in their efforts on behalf of 
measures to show a united front to the enemy and for the 
most active prosecution of hostilities, 16 Calhoun insisting in 
1814 that " a regular force of at least fifty thousand ought to 
be ready to act against Canada by the first of May, or June, 
at farthest." 17 

Randolph had for years been a thorn in the side of the ad- 
ministration, and he was certainly a most unbridled member, 
his caustic tongue goading opponents to fury, while the long 
and rambling speeches he often indulged in made most serious 
inroads upon the time of the House. The Annals, speaking 
in 181 6 of what was probably an outrageous tirade by this 
erratic genius, explain that " the length of his speech, which 
continued three days, and which it would take more than a 
week to write off from the reporter's brief notes, prevents 
its publication." 18 It was possibly in part for the purpose 
of curbing these endless outbursts 19 that the young and bold 
Henry Clay had given up his seat in the Senate and entered 
the House. Nor was it long before the new Speaker was 
called upon to exercise the function of suppression. 

Toward the end of May, 18 12, rumors were generally cur- 
rent that it was intended in a few days to declare war, and 
Randolph, who was bitterly opposed to this measure, began 
one of his wordy attacks. He spoke on no pending measure 
and was beginning to ramble far afield as to these mere ru- 
mors, when Calhoun called him to order for speaking on war, 
while no such question was before the House. 

15 Ibid., Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, 1813-14, Vol. I, p. 870. 

10 Ibid., Twelfth Congress, First Session, Part I, 1811-12, pp. 616, 1080. 
Only a carping critic would find any inconsistency with Calhoun's later 
career in his ohjection to a portion of the proposed militia law that it 
would " leave it in the power of the States to lock up these arms in arse- 
nals." 

17 Ibid., Thirteenth Congress, Third Session, 1814-15, Vol. Ill, p. 467- 

18 Ibid., Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, p. 840. 

19 Mallory's " Life and Speeches of Henry Clay," Vol. I, p. 48, so states. 



128 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

At the moment, Clay was absent and the Chair was occu- 
pied by the former Speaker, Bibb. He decided against the 
point of order, and then Randolph, — so Calhoun said 20 many 
years later, — turned round to Calhoun " and in his peculiar 
sarcastic manner returned him his thanks, stating that he was 
very nearly exhausted and the interruption had given him 
time to recruit." 

But no biting manner could stop the young war-hawks, 
with the reins of power in their hands. Clay, — perhaps sent 
for, — soon took Bibb's place, and then Calhoun, " conceiving 
from his [Clay's] manner that he did not concur with the de- 
cision of Dr. Bibb, " again insisted that Randolph must sub- 
mit to the House the proposition he intended to make, at the 
same time ironically telling the Roanoke member that he 
would thus give him a chance to thank him again. Clay at 
once decided that the point of order was "unquestionably" 
correct, " and then followed a scene of deep excitement." 
Randolph, after no little wrangling and after the loss of his 
appeal from the decision, offered a resolution that " under ex- 
isting circumstances, it is inexpedient to resort to war against 
Great Britain," meaning, of course, to string his speech to 
this and try to weaken the chances for a declaration. But 
his resolution was not seconded, and Clay held that he could 
not speak, unless the House should take up the subject. Ran- 
dolph appealed from this decision also, but later withdrew his 
appeal, and thus the most unruly of members was at last 
stopped for once and forced to hold his peace. The intended 
speech was not made, and Randolph and Clay sought another 
forum in the public prints, where the problems of parliamen- 
tary law were discussed by them at some length. 21 It is 
hardly possible to doubt that this choking off of Randolph 
was carried out in pursuance of a pretty well-settled plan of 
the young leaders to do so, at the first effort on Randolph's 
part to indulge in his usual habits. 

The rumor referred to by Randolph was true and war at 
our door. On Monday, June i, a confidential message was 

20 Speech of July 17, 1841, in the Senate; "Congressional Globe," 
Twenty-Seventh Congress, First Session, pp. 215, 216. 

21 Ibid., Twelfth Congress, First Session, Part II, 1811-13, pp. I45I-79- 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 129 

received from the President, the House was cleared and the 
message then read in secret session. It reviewed the course 
of England and insisted that she in reality maintained a state 
of war against us, while we were at peace with her. 
" Whether the United States," so Madison went on, " shall 
continue passive under these progressive usurpations ... or, 
opposing force to force in defence of their national rights 
shall commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty Dis- 
penser of events ... is a solemn question which the Con- 
stitution wisely confides to the Legislative Department of the 
Government. In recommending it to their early deliberation, 
I am happy in the assurance that the decision will be worthy 
the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and 
a powerful nation." 

The message was referred to the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs, and on June 3 Calhoun reported from the Com- 
mittee, reviewing the long series of wrongs done us by Eng- 
land and concluding that they " feel no hesitation in advising 
resistance by force. . . . Your committee recommend an im- 
mediate appeal to arms." Quincy, of Massachusetts, moved 
to open the doors and remove the injunction of secrecy, but 
his motion was defeated, — Calhoun, Lowndes, Cheves, and 
other Southern leaders voting against it. Finally, after one 
more effort to open the doors had been lost, the bill declaring 
war against England was passed by 79 votes to 49. On June 
18 the Senate notified the House that it had passed the bill 
with certain amendments, which were concurred in by the 
House on the same day, after the defeat of various motions 
to postpone, and the completed bill was then at once signed 
by Madison. On that same day, upon the motion of Cal- 
houn, 22 the injunction of secrecy as to the message and pro- 
ceedings was removed. 

Calhoun, Clay, and some others had been in favor of hold- 
ing the discussion on the war message with open doors; but 
Grundy and others opposed this, so it was thought advisable 
to consult with the Executive. Calhoun, Clay, and Grundy 

"Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, First Session, 1811-12, Part 
II, pp. 1546-54. Ibid., Supplemental Journal, pp. 1624-31, 1633- 1637, 1679, 
1682, 1683. 



130 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

called accordingly upon Madison, with the result that the doors 
were kept closed. Later, when the vote was about to be taken, 
Madison sent his private secretary with a request for delay 
to receive a communication from him. Apparently, this mes- 
sage was sent direct to Calhoun, and he replied that he could 
not take the responsibility of a delay, but would (if author- 
ized) state the President's wishes. This step was then taken, 
and in consequence the question was postponed until the in- 
tended communication came in, which turned out to be from 
the British Minister, intended to prevent the declaration and 
thus save his credit after he had written home that the Re- 
publican party could not be " kicked into a war." Here the 
matter ended, no further delay occurred, and the war was de- 
clared as already narrated. 23 

The bold, if terribly dangerous, decision was thus at length 
made, and our new-born federation, containing within its lim- 
its less than eight million people, was at war with a nation 
the most fundamentally powerful on the face of earth, — the 
nation which alone had been able to stand up against the 
colossal Empire of Napoleon, and whose ships had swept the 
seas of all enemies. Upon her dominions, it was said, as 
had been already said of other vast empires, the sun never 
sets; and, so wide-extended were they that the far broader, 
though less rhetorical, statement that it was forever exactly 
noon within her possessions, would have been almost literally 
true. An implacable enemy she was, puffed up with the arro- 
gance of success, and despising to a degree those petty wasps, 
her late colonists. 

In bringing about the mighty decision, which had thus at 
length been reached, there can be no question but that Calhoun 
had a leading- hand. He seems to have alwavs believed that 
the disputes would unavoidably end in war, and this opinion 
naturally led him to more and more importance among those 
who looked upon that as the only means of solving our diffi- 
culties, but he was not the author of the War Report which 
he had presented on June 3. That paper had been prepared 

23 Calhoun gave these details in the Senate on July 17, 1841, " Congres- 
sional Globe," Twenty-Seventh Congress, First Session, p. 215. See also 
"Autobiography," p. 12. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 131 

by Monroe at the request of the Committee on Foreign Af- 
fairs, — and doubtless of Calhoun himself, — on the ground 
that Monroe was more thoroughly conversant with the facts. 
It was a curious chance that its presentation should fall to 
the hands of Calhoun, the youngest member of the Commit- 
tee, owing to the absence of the chairman, Peter B. Porter, 
and it has been truthfully said that "the presentation of [it] 
immediately gave him a national reputation." 24 For some 
years afterward he was beyond doubt among the most popu- 
lar men in the country. 

There is one other speech of Calhoun's at this First Session 
of Congress, which must be referred to. On June 19, 181 2, 
the day after the declaration of war, Cheves introduced into 
the House from the Ways and Means Committee a bill par- 
tially suspending for a limited time the several acts prohibit- 
ing importations from Great Britain and her colonies, and on 
the 23rd Richardson of Massachusetts moved to amend by 
repealing all the prohibitory acts entirely. 25 Some of the ma- 
jority were very restive under the restrictive system, despite 
the fact that it was undoubtedly the policy of the Republican 

24 Benton, in " Thirty Years' View," Vol. I, p. 680, writes that Monroe 
drew the report and that the ahsence of Porter and the hesitancy of 
Grundy, "the second on the committee, threw [it] into the hands of Mr. 
Calhoun, the third on the list," but he is here partly in error. Calhoun 
was the second member. Mr. Gaillard Hunt has discovered an unpublished 
article by Gales of the " National Intelligencer," which shows clearly that 
the War Report was drawn by Monroe. Gales had seen the report in 
the handwriting of Monroe's confidential clerk, and gives other evidence 
also. Very possibly, Benton was the " living statesman," at whose re- 
quest Gales wrote the article in question and who only used a part of 
it. According to Gales, some six months after Congress met, Clay and 
other members had called on Madison and told him Congress was ready 
to declare war, if he would recommend it. He had for some timebeen 
ready, and his War Message of June 1 was soon sent in. This inter- 
view of Clay and others is doubtless the same one to which Calhoun has 
been shown to have referred in the Senate many years later, and which 
was made in order to determine whether or not the debate should be 
held with open doors. It was very innocent but came in time to be per- 
verted into the oft-repeated story that Clay and others forced Madison 
into the Declaration by the threat that he would not otherwise be nomi- 
nated for a second term. No real evidence to this effect has been pro- 
duced, and there is plenty to the contrary. See Mr. Hunt's article in 
"American Historical Review," Vol. XIII, pp. 303-10; and his "Life of 
Madison," pp. 316-327. 

25 Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, First Session, Part II, 1811-12, 
PP- 15", 1533- 



132 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

party and had been adhered to for many years by all the 
fathers in that faith. Indeed, according to the " Autobi- 
ography," 20 the support of it had long been " the main test 
of party fidelity," to which the author adds that " party spirit 
was never higher than at the time." 

These facts were not calculated to make a young man am- 
bitious of a career come out in open opposition to a policy 
that had thus not only the support of all the older leaders but 
was also advocated by the existing Executive. The " Auto- 
biography " speaks in the highest terms of the boldness and 
independence of the young Calhoun, who ventured, " when he 
believed that duty and the interest of the country required it, 
to place himself above all party considerations, and to expose 
manfully the defects of a system which had been so long 
cherished and defended by the party to which he belonged." 
Possibly, this is a slightly exaggerated view, for Calhoun was 
not the only one of the bounding young war-hawks to an- 
nounce his disbelief in this particular part of the creed of his 
party, but still it was a bold and independent step on his part. 
On June 24 he spoke as follows upon the proposed bill for a 
partial suspension and Richardson's motion to amend by mak- 
ing the repeal total : 

I am in favor of the amendment proposed by the gentleman 
from Massachusetts ; and as I differ from many of my friends on 
the subject, I feel it a duty to present the reasons which will 
govern me. ... It now remains for me to touch another and 
far more interesting topic of argument, and which I confess 
has the principal weight in the formation of my opinion on this 
subject. The restrictive system, as a means of resistance and 
a mode of obtaining redress for our wrongs, has never been a 
favorite one with me. I wish not to censure the motive which 
dictated it, or to attribute weakness to those who first resorted 
to it for a restoration of our rights. Though I do not think the 
embargo a wise measure, yet I am far from thinking it a pusil- 
lanimous one. To lock up the whole commerce of the country ; to 
say to the most trading and exporting people in the world, you 
shall not trade, you shall not export : to break in on the schemes of 
almost every man in society is far from weakness, very far from 

=«P. 10. 






WAR WITH ENGLAND 133 

pusillanimity. Sir, I confess, while I disapprove that more than 
any measure, it proves the strength of your Government and the 
patriotism of the people. The arm of despotism under similar 
circumstances could not coerce its execution more effectually, 
than the zeal and patriotism of the people. But, sir, I object to 
the restrictive system ; and for the following reasons ; because it 
does not suit the genius of our people, or that of the Govern- 
ment, or the geographical character of our country. We are a 
people essentially active. I may say we are pre-eminently so. 
Distance and difficulties are less to us than any people on earth. 
Our schemes and prospects extend everywhere and to every- 
thing. No passive system can suit such a people, in action su- 
perior to all others ; in patience and endurance inferior to many. 27 
Nor does it suit the genius of our Government. Our Govern- 
ment is founded on freedom and hates coercion. To make the 
coercive system effectual, requires the most arbitrary laws. . . . 
Besides, there are other and strong objections to the system. 
It renders Government odious. People are not in the habit of 
looking back beyond the immediate cause. The farmer inquires 
why he cannot get more for his produce, and he is told that it is 
owing to the embargo, or to commercial restrictions. In this 
he sees only the hand of his own Government. He does not 
look to those acts of violence and injustice, which this system 
is intended to counteract. His censures fall on his Government. 
... -In war it is different. The privation, it is true, may be 
equal or greater; but the public mind, under the strong im- 
pulses of that state of things, becomes steeled against suffer- 
ings. The difference is great between the passive and active 
state of the mind. Tie down a hero, and he feels the puncture 
of a pin ; but throw him into battle, and he is scarcely sensible 
of vital gashes. So in war; impelled alternately by hope and 
fear, stimulated with revenge, depressed with shame, or ele- 
vated with victory, the people have become invincible. No priva- 
tion can shake their fortitude. No calamity can break their 
spirit. Even where equally successful, the contrast is striking. 
War and restriction may leave the country equally exhausted; 
but the latter not only leaves you poor, but, even when success- 
ful, dispirited, divided, discontented, with diminished patriotism 
and the manners of a considerable portion of your people cor- 

27 In quoting this speech, apparently from another source, for there are 
numerous small variations, the " Autobiography " p. 10, has the word 
" none," in place of " many." 



134 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

rupted. Not so in war. In that state the common danger unites 
all — strengthens the bonds of society, and feeds the flame of 
patriotism. The national character acquires energy. In ex- 
change for the expenses of war, you obtain military and naval 
skill, and a more perfect organization of such parts of your 
Government as is [sic] connected with the science of national 
defence. You also obtain the habit of freely advancing your 
purse and strength in the common cause. Sir, are these advan- 
tages to be considered as trifles in the present state of the world? 
Can they be measured by a moneyed valuation ? . . . Sir, I would 
prefer a single victory over the enemy by sea or land to all the 
good we shall ever derive from the continuation of the non-im- 
portation act. I know not that it would produce an equal pres- 
sure on the enemy ; but I am certain of what is of greater conse- 
quence, it would be accompanied with more salutary effects on 
ourselves. The memory of a Saratoga or Eutaw is immortal. 
It is there you will find the country's boast and pride ; the inex- 
haustible source of great and heroic actions. 28 

The motion to amend, so as to make the repeal complete, 
was lost by a vote of 58 Yeas to 61 Nays, Calhoun, Cheves, 
and Lowndes voting Yea; but the Republican members much 
divided. Another motion, to expunge from the bill all ex- 
ceptions to the suspension of non-importation, " so as to make 
it total instead of partial," was soon made, and was barely lost 
by 59 to 60, — one member from North Carolina having 
changed his vote. Then an indefinite postponement was car- 
ried by 63 to 58 ; Calhoun, Cheves, and Lowndes in the nega- 
tive. 

While we are upon this general subject, it will be best to 
end what needs to be said of Calhoun's course in regard to 
it. The administration still adhered to the restrictive sys- 
tem, even long after the war began. On July 20, 1813, during 
the first session of the Thirteenth Congress, Madison sent in 
a secret message, recommending an embargo, and such a meas- 
ure passed the House by a vote of 80 to 50, but failed in the 
Senate. 29 Calhoun and several other leaders voted against 

28 Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, First Session, Part II, 1811-12, 

PP- 1535, 1539-44. 

29 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, First Session, 1813-14, Vol. 

I, PP- 499, 500, 503, 504. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 135 

it in the house. Very early in the next session, on December 
9, 18 1 3, Madison again sent in a secret message, with the 
recommendation that " an effectual embargo on exports be 
immediately enacted." The ground alleged was that " sup- 
plies of most essential kinds " were finding their way to Brit- 
ish ports and even to British armies in our immediate neigh- 
borhood. Calhoun had, as has been said, voted against the 
proposed embargo at the preceding session; and a speech be- 
fore that date has just been quoted in which he openly ex- 
pressed his disbelief in the whole restrictive policy, but on 
this occasion his name appears among those in favor of the 
measure. His colleagues, Cheves and Lowndes, voted against 
it; but it passed both Houses and became a law on December 
17, 1813. 30 

Of course it is clear that Calhoun's course upon this subject 
was not consistent; but public men often find consistency hard 
to attain, and there is no reason to doubt the truth of his 
statement 31 that "at the earnest entreaties of friends, and to 
prevent division in the party when their union was so neces- 
sary to the success of the war, [he] gave it a reluctant vote." 
Ingersoll, too, who sat in this same Congress, seems to have 
known that, though Calhoun voted for the measure, he dis- 
approved of it. He had apparently declined to advance the 
bill in any way, and Grundy acted as leader. 32 

This was the last of the much-discussed restrictive meas- 
ures, and it was a short-lived statute. Within less than four 
months and at the same session of Congress, on March 31, 
1 814, Madison recommended the repeal of the embargo and 
the practical abandonment of the whole restrictive system. 
The message was very short, and it will be best to give it at 
length. It was couched in the following words: 

Taking into view the mutual interests which the United States 
and the foreign nations in amity with them have in a liberal com- 
mercial intercourse, and the extensive changes favorable thereto 
which have recently taken place: taking into view, also, the im- 

30 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, 1813-14, 
Part II, pp. 2031, 2032, 2053. 

31 " Autobiography," pp. 13, 14. 

"Ingersoll's "Second War" (1814), Vol. II, p. 5X. 



136 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

portant advantages which may otherwise result from adapting 
the state of our commercial laws to the circumstances now exist- 
ing; 

I recommend to the consideration of Congress the expediency 
of authorizing, after a certain day, exportations, specie excepted, 
from the United States, in vessels of the United States, and in 
vessels owned and navigated by the subjects of Powers at peace 
with them; and a repeal of so much of our laws as prohibit the 
importation of articles not the property of enemies, but produced 
or manufactured only within their dominions. 

I recommend, also, as a more effectual safeguard and encour- 
agement to our growing manufactures, that the additional duties 
on imports which are to expire at the end of one year after a 
peace with Great Britain, be prolonged to the end of two years 
after that event; and that, in favor of our moneyed institutions, 
the exportation of specie be prohibited throughout the same 
period. 33 

The Message was referred in the House to the Committee 
on Foreign Relations, and on April 4 Calhoun brought in a 
bill to repeal the law of December 17, 18 13, the non-inter- 
course law and for other purposes. In his report, 34 he states 
very clearly the changed circumstances that rendered the re- 
peal advisable. " Previous to the late changes in Europe," 
he wrote, " the bearing of our restrictive measures was for 
the most part confined to our enemies. ... At present, a 
prospect exists of an extended intercourse with [the friendly 
Powers] highly important to both parties. . . . Denmark, all 
Germany, and Holland, heretofore under the double restraint 
of internal regulation and external blockades and depreda- 
tions from a commerce with the United States, appear by late 
events to be liberated therefrom. Like changes . . . appear 
to be taking place in Italy, and the most extreme parts of the 
Mediterranean." 

During the debate, he spoke several times and insisted that 
the war " was, as it had been emphatically and correctly stated, 
a war for Free Trade and Sailors' Rights." He again ex- 
pressed openly his opposition to the whole system of restric- 

33 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, 1813-14 
Vol. I, p. 694. 
"Ibid., pp. 1946, 1947. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 137 

tion. " Gentlemen might say," such were his words, " that, 
in this view of the restrictive system, it ought to have ter- 
minated at the commencement of the war. To be candid, 
that was his opinion ... he thought it ought to have ter- 
minated in war earlier than it did." 

The discussion became a good deal involved with the tariff 
question, but into this we must not enter now. Suffice it to 
say that, after various unsuccessful motions to lessen the com- 
pleteness of the repeal, the measure was passed by a vote of 
115 to 37, much in the form in which Calhoun had introduced 
it. Some days later, certain Senate amendments of impor- 
tance were on his motion concurred in by 68 to 52, and then 
with the President's signature the measure became a law. 35 

Thus, a law enacted on Madison's recommendation in De- 
cember, 18 1 3, was repealed upon his recommendation in 
April, 18 1 4. The burden of defending this apparently in- 
consistent conduct fell chiefly on Calhoun as administration 
leader on the floor, and he had himself openly expressed dis- 
approval of the whole restrictive system and yet had voted 
for the measure of December, 181 3. It was in his speech 
upon this subject that he drew the distinction between the 
state of public affairs in Europe in 1807, at the inception of 
our restrictive system, and that existing in 18 14. 36 At the 
former date, he said, there were no neutrals, while in 1814 a 
large portion of the Continent had at length come to be so, 
and its ports were open. The difference to us, consequent 
upon the then recent changes in Europe, were also set forth 
plainly enough by him in the already quoted report accom- 
panying the bill of repeal. 

His conduct of the matter was such that it is very likely 
many of his hearers did not fully realize what a volte-face 
the administration had made, and it certainly helped enor- 
mously to let them gracefully out of the difficulty. So much 
was this the case that the biographer of Webster has written : 

There are few specimens of parliamentary tact, on the records 

35 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, 1813-14, 
Vol. II, pp. 1962, 1963, 1983, 1084, 1991, 1092, 2001, 2002, 2014. 

36 See the speech quoted in part, ante, p. 117. 



138 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

of any deliberative assembly, more ingenious than this speech of 
Mr. Calhoun in favor of repealing the Embargo of December, 
1813. But he forgot, perhaps he wished to forget, that it was 
the Embargo of December, 1813, which he was about to repeal. 
He forgot that the very assertion of the President, when he 
recommended this as a war measure, was, that there were neutral 
nations, under whose flag and through whose ports an indirect 
commerce between Great Britain and ourselves was then allowed 
to be going on, which weakened us and strengthened her as 
belligerents, and which must therefore be suppressed, at whatso- 
ever expense to those neutral nations. All that Mr. Calhoun 
said, respecting the importance of conciliating and helping the 
nations that were neutrals, in April, 1814, when he proposed the 
repeal, was true and sound; but it was just as true and sound in 
December, 18 13, when this Embargo was laid. Moreover, Napo- 
leon had been driven out of Russia in the winter of 1812-13 ; and 
when we laid this particular Embargo of December, 1813, put- 
ting an end to all lawful commerce with all nations, a large part 
of Northern Europe was preparing to combine against him, and 
their territories could no longer be used by him as the sphere of 
his own restrictive policy. 37 

The inconsistency of the two measures of enactment and 
repeal certainly seems on the surface most striking, but it is 
not easy to-day to judge fairly of events occurring so long 
ago, and I think examination will lessen our wonder. News 
then travelled slowly, and not only does a new alignment of 
nations always take long to develop but the results thereof 
must, even then, lie still hidden for months or years in the 
womb of time. After Napoleon's Russian disaster it is quite 
true that several of the ports of Europe, in the North espe- 
cially, were soon opened to British trade, so that our em- 
bargo could have had no material effect on England ; but the 
permanence of this condition of affairs was very uncertain. 
Napoleon's career had been so dazzling that it was quite nat- 
ural to doubt what would be the final result. Even after the 
formation of a new coalition between Prussia and Russia, in 
February and March of 1813, — to which Austria did not ac- 
cede until August, — the French Emperor had at first some 

87 Curtis's " Webster," Vol. I, pp. 126, 127. 



WAR WITH ENGLAND 139 

astonishing successes; and it was not until October 19th that 
he met his first great defeat at Leipsic. 

The news of this crushing blow did not reach America 
until the 30th of December, 181 3, 38 two weeks after this last 
embargo had become a law, and three weeks after Madison 
had recommended it. Nor should we forget that a leading 
reason for advising the measure was that supplies from Amer- 
ica were then finding their way to the British armies operat- 
ing against us. This trade was, moreover, entirely enjoyed 
by disaffected New England, and it is doubtless true that the 
desire to stop this exchange, which was so profitable to the 
bitter opponents of the war, was in part the guiding motive 
of Madison and the Republicans. 

The embargo of 18 13 was beyond doubt ill-timed and, had 
it been delayed two or three weeks, would never have been 
recommended or passed. After the arrival of news of the 
battle of Leipsic, nearly every vessel coming to our shores 
brought reports of French reverses, 39 so that almost all of Eu- 
rope was soon open to British trade and our restrictive meas- 
ures palpably senseless for their main purpose; and in April, 
1814, at the time of the final abandonment of our long-fol- 
lowed policy, Napoleon was actually signing his abdication. 

The restrictive system thus at length came to an end. It 
must be admitted to have accomplished little, — whatever any 
of us may think the might-have-been as to it. The result pos- 
sibly justified Webster's sarcasm uttered early in the debate 
as to his happiness " to be present at the office now to be per- 
formed, and to act a part in the funeral ceremonies of what 
has usually been called the restrictive system." The opposi- 
tion have always an easy time and can let their tongues drip 
most bitter irony and invective, but are in the main restricted 
to such rather unavailing methods. 40 

S8 McMaster's "United States," Vol. IV, pp. 223-229. 

39 McMaster's " United States," Vol. IV, pp. 223-29. 

40 For the proceedings and debates as to this final repeal see Annals or 
Congress, Thirteenth Congress, 1813-14, Vol. II, pp. 1961-66, 1983, 1084, 
1986, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1992, 2001, 2002, 2014. 



CHAPTER VIII 

ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 

Second Session of Twelfth Congress — The Thirteenth 
Congress — The Loan Bill — Bank of the United States Pro- 
posed — Death of Daughter. 

The Second Session of the Twelfth Congress met on No- 
vember 2, 1 812, and Calhoun was present on the opening day. 
He had presumably been at home during the interval between 
the adjournment of the prior session on July 6, 1812, and 
the meeting of the present one in November. It was the short 
session, the Congress expiring by limitation on the 4th of 
March, 1813; and not much occurred of interest to us here. 
At the very beginning, an embarrassing question came up for 
the decision of the Speaker. South Carolina's representation 
included Langdon Cheves, William Lowndes, Gen. David 
R. Williams and Calhoun, the two first men of tried ability 
and both, as well as Williams, at the head of important com- 
mittees, while Calhoun, who had made a decided mark at the 
first session, was yet the youngest of the four named, both 
in years and in length of service. At the prior session he 
had succeeded to the chairmanship of the Committee on For- 
eign Relations upon the retirement of Porter, but there was 
of course difficulty in placing four members from a small 
State at the head of important committees. 

Calhoun at once cut this Gordian knot and, according to 
the " Autobiography," 1 with his characteristic disinterested- 
ness, cheerfully assented to be placed second on that [com- 
mittee] at the head of which he had served with so much 

1 Pp. 12, 13. CraHe" ("Advertisement" to Vol. V. of Calhoun's 
"Works") tells this story somewhat differently. According to him, it 
was Porter, at the prior session, who gave up the chairmanship in Cal- 
houn's favor; but Calhoun's own version is of course the true one. At 
the first session Calhoun had no record behind him and, moreover, Porter 
continued to act as chairman while he remained in the House. 

140 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 141 

distinction at the preceding session. Mr. Smilie, — an old 
and highly respectable member from Pennsylvania, — was 
placed at the head of the committee. At the first meeting the 
chairman, without previously intimating his intention, moved 
that Mr. Calhoun should be elected chairman. He objected, 
and insisted that Mr. Smilie should act as chairman, and de- 
clared his perfect willingness to serve under him ; but he was, 
notwithstanding, unanimously elected, and the strongest proof 
that could be given of the highly satisfactory manner in which 
he had previously discharged his duty was thus afforded. In 
this connection, and as illustrative of the same disinterested 
character, when the speaker's chair became vacant by the ap- 
pointment of Mr. Clay as one of the commissioners to nego- 
tiate for peace, Mr. Calhoun was solicited by many of the 
most influential members of the party to become a candidate 
for it; "but he peremptorily refused to oppose his distin- 
guished colleague, Mr. Cheves, who was elected." 

Early in the session a question arose of great importance 
to the persons concerned, and in the solution of which in a 
way contrary to the purposes of Secretary of the Treasury 
Gallatin Calhoun played a leading part. At the time of the 
declaration of war there was a large amount of American 
capital in England, — the proceeds of exports from this coun- 
try, — which could not, under the terms of the still unrepealed 
Non-Importation Act, be sent home without becoming subject 
to forfeiture. The owners were far from home, and when 
the British Orders in Council were at length revoked after 
our declaration of war, they seem to have assumed that the 
Non-Importation Act would at once be repealed, so large num- 
bers of ships were loaded and despatched to America. Upon 
arrival, however, they were all compelled to enter bond to 
cover the forfeiture incurred by the violation of the Non-Im- 
portation Act; and, when they petitioned for remission, the 
Secretary of the Treasury would not consent, unless some 
share of the very large profits they had made on goods then 
almost unknown in America should enure to the benefit of the 
Government. 

The subject was referred to Congress by the President in 



142 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

his message at the opening of the session, and he seemed to 
incline towards extracting some profit for the government out 
of the merchants' predicament. The question went next to 
the Committee on Ways and Means, and Cheves reported 
against any legislation and in favor of leaving the entire mat- 
ter to the usual discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury. 
It was evidently well known what this meant, and Cheves soon 
said that personally he disapproved of the report and its 
recommendation and only presented them in pursuance of the 
directions of his committee. Calhoun and Lowndes also op- 
posed strongly the policy recommended, — despite the fact that 
the question is said to have assumed much of a party char- 
acter. 

A very large sum was involved, and here was doubtless the 
bait to a government almost bankrupt, as well as the pinch 
to the individuals in trouble. Calhoun told the House in his 
speech that " $20,000,000 await your decision, a sum equal 
to nearly half the annual export of the country." After much 
discussion, a bill passed the House and became a law, much 
in the line which he, with his more liberal views, had advo- 
cated. It directed the remission of the fines in all cases free 
from any fraud or effort at imposition, and was beyond ques- 
tion a very great triumph for its advocates and a striking in- 
stance of their power and independence. 2 

Calhoun doubtless went South again so as to pass at home 
the interval between the adjournment sine die of the Twelfth 
Congress on March 4, 181 3, and the first meeting of the Thir- 
teenth. The latter was appointed, by the Act of February 
27, 18 1 3, to meet on May 24th of that year. He had already 
been elected a member of the Thirteenth Congress in the 
autumn of 1812, but the district from which he was sent was 
quite different from that which he had represented in the 
Twelfth Congress, owing to the fact that, under the appor- 
tionment following upon the census of 1810, nine members 
were assigned to South Carolina instead of eight, to which 
she had formerly been entitled. The new district was made 

2 Annals of Congress, Twelfth Congress, Second Session, 1812-13, pp. 15, 
198, 199. 216, 315-21, 1334-35- "Autobiography," p. 13. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 143 

up of Edgefield and Abbeville, of which only the latter had 
been included in his former district. It seems that William 
Butler, who had been elected to Congress from 1800 to 181 2 
from the old district, of which Edgefield was a part, now in 
turn withdrew in Calhoun's favor. He is said to have re- 
marked to Calhoun, " You can meet Randolph in debate, I 

cannot." 3 

That he was by this time a man of mark throughout the 
country is very clear, and the rapidity with which he had at- 
tained distinction so great is rarely to be found equalled. His 
first session had been crowded with events of vast importance 
to the country, in all of which he had taken a leading part, as 
well as in the details of getting the country ready for the ordeal 
of war and in the game of fence and spar for position be- 
tween the two parties. That he had shown great tact, end- 
less persistence, and a high order of broad patriotism dur- 
ing the whole of the time is clear enough from the records ; 
and the same thing is also established by the fact that a man 
so young in years and so very young in experience had been in 
a position that often made him the leader for the adminis- 
tration upon the floor of the House. All this had, moreover, 
been the case also during the second session, though it was 
short and not so many matters of great importance came be- 
fore it. 

At home Calhoun was probably engaged in the routine mat- 
ters of a plantation and of his family, but the relaxation must 
have been welcome. A far more trying service than that 
which he had experienced lay ahead of him in the near fu- 
ture. The Twelfth Congress had been chiefly occupied in 
declaring war in the exuberant hope of an early triumph and 
spurred on by a sense of the gross wrongs long done us. But 
the Thirteenth Congress had quite another task. Stem real- 
ity then confronted members, and the glitter of youthful hope 
had been sobered by lamentable disasters such as justified to 
no little extent the opponents of the war in referring to our 
efforts in the field as " two drivelling campaigns." The op- 
position, too, was strengthened by the arrival of Webster, 

3 " Autobiography," p. 23. "Memoirs of Gen. Win. Butler" by T. P. 
Slider, Atlanta, 1885 (pamphlet in Charleston Library Society), p. 27. 



144 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

who now began his long career in the federal service as a mem- 
ber of the House from New Hampshire. 

New policies, moreover, came up for discussion, some of 
them destined for many years to hold an important place in 
the federal councils. The war and the preceding years of 
non-intercourse had led to quite a growth of manufactures, 
and these, as soon as the indirect protection of the war was 
removed, began to clamor for the passage of laws to exclude 
their foreign competitors from our markets and thus prevent 
the ruin of the home-plants. The currency and the whole 
financial system of the country, too, were in such a state of 
chaos as soon led to efforts to establish that Second Bank, 
which was destined to live through a chequered and tragic 
career. It will be found that in these questions, as in all 
others, Calhoun took a leading hand. 

He was present at the opening of the session, and was ap- 
pointed Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. 
The other members were Grundy, Desha, Jackson of Virginia, 
Ingersoll, Fisk of New York, and Webster. 

Early in the session he had occasion to defend the admin- 
istration from an attack by Webster. This new and brilliant 
member, then representing a district of New Hampshire, in- 
troduced resolutions on June 10, calling upon the Executive 
for information " when, by whom and in what manner " in- 
telligence of the repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees had 
first been communicated to our Government. His idea was 
that the administration had either been deceived by the French 
ministry or that at the very time when war was declared they 
were already in possession of the repealing decree (dated 
April 28, 181 1 ), and had suppressed it. The gravamen of 
the charge grew out of the facts that the English Orders in 
Council had been alleged as one of the causes of the war and 
that the English had said that they would repeal those orders 
when the French decrees were repealed. It is evident that 
Webster thought that he had the Government in a tight place 
in this matter, and for a time he carried the House with him. 
A general request for information upon the same point had 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 145 

been passed at the prior session, but Webster thought the an- 
swer insufficient. 

Webster insisted that "the revocation of the Orders in 
Council of Great Britain was the main point on which the 
war turned," and argued that therefore the date at which our 
Government had heard officially of the repeal was vital, and 
he spoke of the " contradictory evidence " on this head. An- 
other member (Sheffey) said that, if the President had knowl- 
edge of the repeal before the war, his conduct " deserves not 
only the scrutiny but the reprehension of the nation, for then 
we had been plunged into the war needlessly. If the knowl- 
edge had been used properly," he said, " the Orders in Coun- 
cil, the great cause of the war, would have been done away," 
— i. e. the virtuous English would at once have repealed their 
Orders, if only they had been informed by Madison that the 
wicked French Decrees had been rescinded. 

Calhoun took up the defence and objected strongly to the 
unusual and prying form in which the resolutions were cast. 
He moved to strike out the words " when, by whom and in 
what manner," and reminded members that the Prince Regent 
of Great Britain had distinctly said in August, 181 2, that 
they would not repeal their Orders, even if the French did 
repeal the Berlin and Milan Decrees. The debate was warm 
for a few days, and it seems as if the administration leaders 
at first feared the matter, but on June 21 Calhoun withdrew 
his amendment, on the ground of being anxious to get to the 
discussion of the vital question of ways and means. Web- 
ster's view was expressed in a letter in which he wrote : ' We 
had a warm time of it for four days, and then the other side 
declined further discussion." Possibly Calhoun's withdrawal 
of his motion was owing to his recognition of the evident 
fact that the House was in favor of the resolutions; but it 
seems more likely that by that time information from the 
Executive had shown that their skirts were entirely clear of 
duplicity in the matter and that there was not the slightest 
reason to fear the inquiry. The resolutions were passed on 
that same day (June 21) by votes of approximately 137 to 



146 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

26. Several administration leaders, and among them Cal- 
houn, Cheves and Lowndes, voted in the affirmative. 4 

On July 12, an answer 5 came in through the Secretary of 
State, Monroe, and showed that the first knowledge of the 
repeal had reached our Government from Barlow, Minister 
to France, on July 13, 1812, — nearly a month after the dec- 
laration of war, and more than a year and two months after 
the date of the repeal (April 28, 181 1). Barlow had first 
heard of it in an informal conversation with the Duke of 
Bassano between the 1st and 10th of May, 18 12, and on the 
latter date it was officially communicated to him at his re- 
quest. He had at once sent the very important information 
to our Minister in England, whence it had been dispatched to 
Washington by the Wasp. It was also at the same time com- 
municated by our Minister to the British cabinet, and the re- 
peal of the British Orders urged, in accordance with former 
intimations of the English Cabinet, but no encouragement had 
been given to expect a repeal. No other communication of 
the decree, so Monroe added, had ever been made to this 
Government, nor explanation given of the long failure to com- 
municate it. 

It cannot be doubted that the administration escaped with 
flying colors the pitfall that Webster had dug for it, and all 
the pother of the matter is probably to be attributed to the 
duplicity of the French Emperor and his agents, and their 
endeavor to keep a door both open and shut. To sign 6 a 
repeal on April 28, 181 1, which was to take effect as of No- 
vember 1st last (1810), — and then to keep it hidden away 
in a dossier until May of 1812, so that bare hints and rumors 
of it flitted about the world to darken and deceive, — 7 is a 

4 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, First Session, 1813-14, Vol. 
I, pp. 149-52, 169 ct scq.,— 170, 172, 174-78, 302, 303. Curtis's "Web- 
ster," Vol. I, pp. 100-14. 

8 Ibid., 433 : State Papers and Public Documents of the United States, 
Third Edition (1819), 1812-15, Vol. IV, pp. 233 ct scg. 

6 Or, possibly to sign it in May, 1812, and ante-date it as of April, 
181 1, — as Benton thinks was done. "Abridgement of Debates of Con- 
gress," Vol. V, p. 19. 

7 Rumors of the repeal had been long prevalent, and had been referred 
to in Madison's Message at the opening of the First Session of the 
Twelfth Congress, on November 5, 181 1. These rumors had been vainly 
used with the British cabinet to secure a repeal of the Orders in Council. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 147 

method that must often lead to grave misunderstanding. In 
this instance, too, flat lying seems to have been indulged in, 
for the French Secretary stated that he had long before told 
Barlow's predecessor of the repeal, as well as sent it to Amer- 
ica to be communicated to our Government. No record of 
any such information, however, was to be found in our ar- 
chives, either in Paris or Washington, and it may be safely 
said that the great news had never been made known to us 
or our agents. It was far too important, and the repeal was 
too anxiously desired by our Government to have been allowed 
to drop or disappear, but it was probably this statement of 
the French Secretary, appearing in our official correspondence, 
that misled Webster and made him cocksure for a time that 
he had Madison on the hip. 

The English did finally repeal their Orders in Council on 
June 23, 1812, — more than a month after they had been au- 
thoritatively informed by us of the French decree of April 
28, 181 1, and they then alleged the recall of the French de- 
crees as the cause of their action, but the refusal to repeal 
the Orders, when urged by our Minister on that very ground 
in May, and several utterances by the highest English authori- 
ties as well as their later suggestion to us of a repeal under 
conditions speak far louder, and justify the statement in Mon- 
roe's report that the real cause must have been something else. 

Monroe's reply was at once referred to the Committee on 
Foreign Relations, and the next day (July 13) Calhoun re- 
ported 8 shortly from it with a resolution that " the conduct 
of the Executive . . . meets with the approbation of this 
Flouse." But the House declined to consider the matter, and 

8 Had the language of this report been remembered in 1834 by Jack- 
son's friends, they would have used it at the time of the resolution of 
censure of March 26, 1834, upon his conduct in regard to the removal of 
the deposits. Calhoun's report of 1813 read that the committee were 
" aware that on ordinary occasions it is not proper for this House to ex- 
press sentiments of approbation or censure on the conduct of the Presi- 
dent, but submit with deference that, as through this body he is per- 
sonally responsible to the people for the faithful discharge of his duties, 
there arc cases in which it is not only the right but the duty of this 
House to express its opinion. Such, in the judgment of your committee, 
is the present. The language of the resolutions, and the motives avowed 
by their supporters, leave no alternative. To be silent would be to con- 
demn." 






148 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

went instead to the vital question of Ways and Means, and 
again later they declined to take it up, on Calhoun's own mo- 
tion to do so. At the next session, Webster returned once 
more to the charge, largely on the ground that Monroe's re- 
ply was an argument and not a report. Calhoun expressed 
himself as quite willing to fix an early date to consider the 
subject, provided there was no interference with the " great 
business of the session," but the matter was never actually dis- 
cussed. It had been a warm skirmish but was merely par- 
tisan warfare. 9 

It was during this session that the Massachusetts Remon- 
strance against the war was presented by Pickering. This 
paper, now so much out of fashion as to be stored away deep 
in the dust of history's lumber-room, took strong State-Rights 
ground. Speaking of " the powers reserved to the State Sov- 
ereignties," it maintained that " the States, as well as the in- 
dividuals composing them, are parties to the national com- 
pact," while it sought also covertly to defend impressment by 
the English under the doctrine of national allegiance, which, 
it went on, " is too well founded, has been too long estab- 
lished, and is too consonant with the permanent interest, the 
peace and independence of all nations, to be disturbed for the 
purpose of substituting in its place certain visionary notions, 
to which the French Revolution gave birth, and which though 
long exploded there, seem still to have an unhappy influence 
in our country." It is strange to find the early Massachu- 
setts leaders taking such grounds as these, while the youthful 
Calhoun expressed at once his disapproval of the doctrines 
asserted and said that " he certainly never would countenance 
what might be considered a declaration of war by one State 
against another." 10 

8 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress. First Session, 1813-14. Vol. 
I, pp. 4^5. 436, 438, 442, 470, 47T. Ibid., Second Session, pp. 824-828; 
Curtis's '"Webster," Vol. I, pp. 100-114, 117, "8. Cnrtis writes that dis- 
cussion of these last resolutions "was never allowed to take place, but 
this fact does not appear, nor does it seem likely in view of the issue 
upon the subject at the prior session, unless the leaders merely desired 
to avoid the consumption of time imperatively needed for more important 
subjects. 

10 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, First Session, 1813-14. Vol. 

I, PP- 333-41. 347, 350, 35 1- 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 149 

Nothing more of interest to us occurred at this session, 
which adjourned on August 2, 181 3. Calhoun was then, no 
doubt, once more at home for a time with his family, but was 
present again on Tuesday, December 7, the day after the meet- 
ing of the Second Session. This was the great session of 
the war and was crowded with events and policies connected 
with it. He was again placed at the head of the Committee 
on Foreign Affairs, and was also the third member on a com- 
mittee, of which Macon was chairman, to which was referred 
" so much of the President's Message as relates to the retalia- 
tion of our government, of the proceedings of the enemy, 
contrary to the legitimate modes of warfare." I have not 
found that he took any active part in the proceedings of this 
latter committee. 

Calhoun of course supported and pressed on the bill to 
encourage enlistments by giving bounties, and all the meas- 
ures for the active prosecution of the war, and he was often 
on his feet defending our conduct of it and answering the 
indictments of the opposition. He found frequent occasion 
in particular to meet the jibes of Webster, and more than once 
denounced the bitter opposition of this member and of others. 
On February 8, 18 14, when a measure to raise three additional 
regiments of riflemen was pending, and Grosvenor of New 
York and Webster had been pouring out the vials of their 
wrath, Calhoun spoke twice in defense of our conduct of the 
war and expressed his astonishment " to see American citi- 
zens, in this body or elsewhere, get up and tell you that all 
your objects have failed." A few days earlier, too, he had 
spoken with no little asperity of certain views advanced by 
Grosvenor in regard to the slight degree of protection we owed 
to naturalized citizens fighting in our armies, winding up with 
a hope that the doctrine " was confined to himself and had 
not many advocates, even in his own party." ll Possibly 
these were some of the straws that led to a serious quarrel he 
had with Grosvenor, as will be later shown. 

The assertion that we were waging a war of conquest 

11 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, 1813-14, 
Vol. I, pp. 1222, 1223, 1261-63. 



150 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

against Canada, and that other long-lived favorite of the op- 
position, — the assertion of French subserviency on the part 
of the administration, — had of course to be met on more than 
one occasion. To the former Calhoun always replied by in- 
sisting that our attack upon Canada was called for by the 
necessity of keeping the enemy's forces out of our territory. 
The true criterion was " the motive and cause which led to 
it [the attack]." We must of course use (so his speech may 
be summed up) the means most likely to force the enemy to 
respect our rights, and the war in Canada is the very best 
security for our own territory by forcing the enemy to con- 
centrate his whole force there for its defense. And on the 
same point, he said in substance upon another occasion, the 
enemy presses us both on the seaboard and on our interior 
frontier. On the seaboard our war must be strictly defens- 
ive, on the Canada frontier the opposite. It must there be 
wholly offensive. This was plainly our course, he continued, 
for if we have a sufficient army in that quarter, the enemy 
must call off all his force from our seaboard or at once lose 
his colonies. Fifty thousand men at least ought to be avail- 
able to send against them. " He did hope," he also said, 
" the miserably stale and absurd objections against offensive 
operations in Canada had ceased, till he heard yesterday the 
member from New Hampshire [Mr. Webster]." 12 

The charge of French subserviency was met by him mainly 
by ridicule, as was possibly best when dealing with an asser- 
tion, to disprove which would have called for the proof of a 
negative, and which was altogether lacking in foundation, un- 
less a feeling of sympathy between nations constitutes a case 
of subserviency. He dubbed it " a baseless accusation " as 
applied to us; and again after the fall of Napoleon in 1814, 
when referring to the then position of the English, he said : 
" The magic cry of French influence is lost . . . the cry of 
French influence, that baseless fiction, that phantom of fac- 
tion, now banished." 13 

12 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, 1813-14, 
Vol. I, pp. 808, 995; Ibid., Third Session, 1814-15, Vol. Ill, pp. 466, 467. 

13 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, 1813-14* Vol. I, pp. 870, 
930, 995, 1261-63; Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 1685, 1687; ibid., 1814-15, Vol. Ill, 
p. 466. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 151 

A condition of the utmost seriousness presented itself to 
our country early in 18 14. Napoleon had met with his great 
Russian disaster during the winter of 1812-13 and was forced 
to abdicate on April 5, 18 14. The English, then, being re- 
lieved of the war on the continent of Europe, were at once 
able to turn all their vast power against us. The dangers 
consequent upon this state of affairs were great indeed and 
of a character to unnerve a man who had been actively con- 
cerned in bringing on the war. But Calhoun, though his na- 
ture seems to have been in the main that of a student and 
thinker rather than of a born fighter, was by no means ap- 
palled. On the contrary, he was among the most urgent of 
the young Americans to press his countrymen on to the exer- 
tions necessary to meet the awful crisis. 

The administration leaders introduced into the House what 
was known in the language of the day as the Loan Bill, — a 
measure proposing to borrow the sum of thirty million dol- 
lars. This was long debated in Committee of the Whole, and 
the discussion took a very wide range, members using the op- 
portunity either to attack or to defend the justice, or policy, 
of the war, and indulging often in nights of eloquence doubt- 
less intended chiefly for their constituents. The debate was 
evidently a brilliant one, interspersed with many stirring 
speeches, and its scenes lived long in the memories of the ar- 
dent youths who took part in it. The opposition expatiated 
upon the utter hopelessness of the contest under the circum- 
stances, and seems to have made every effort to defeat this 
bill, 14 which sober after judgment must surely look upon as 
having been absolutely vital to our welfare, if not to our in- 
dependent existence. 

On February 25, Calhoun took the floor and had his share 
in this species of saturnalia of debate. The opposition ob- 
jected that the money could only be obtained at a high rate, 
but Calhoun declined to enter into this question, and answered 
that it must be had at the best rate at which we could get it. 
He touched on impressment, and to the claim of the opposi- 
tion that the British merely took some of our men by mistake, 

14 Calhoun's " Autobiography," p. 14- 



152 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

answered that they admitted there were sixteen hundred 
Americans on board their ships at the outbreak of the war 
and then said " the duty which the country owes to the im- 
pressed sailors originates in a single fact, that they are un- 
justly deprived by a foreign nation of their liberty. The 
principle on which they are deprived of their liberty, or the 
manner, constitutes no part of it. ... It is our duty, most 
sacredly our duty, to protect the life and liberty of our citi- 
zens against foreign oppression. Instead of doing our duty, 
we have for many years quietly beheld them forced into a 
hateful foreign service." 

Finally, in reply to the contention that, after the recent 
events in Europe, our efforts were useless, he admitted that 
the enemy's power was great and her " fortune at the flood," 
but then went on : " Such prosperity is the most fickle of 
human conditions. From the flood the tide dates its ebb. 
. . . He can now no more claim to be struggling for exist- 
ence. We cannot renounce our right to the ocean, which 
Providence has spread before our doors, nor will we ever 
hold that which is the immediate gift of Heaven under the 
license of any nation. We have already had success worthy 
of our cause. The future is audibly pronounced by the splen- 
did victories over the Guerriere, Java and Macedonian. We, 
and all nations, are in them taught a lesson never to be forgot. 
Opinion is power. The charm of British naval invincibility 
is broken." 15 

It is likely that once more Calhoun went home to his fam- 
ily after the adjournment of this session on April 18, 1814. 
During his absence, about the end of January, 16 his wife had 
given birth to their second child, Floride. He had an attack 
of bilious fever in the following fall 1T and was not present 
when the third session met on September 19, 1814, in pur- 
suance of the President's proclamation. Hence, it happened 
that at the time he took his seat, on October 19, his former 

15 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, 1813-14, Second Session, 
Vol. II, pp. 1673-04. 

10 " Correspondence," p. 126. 

17 Speech in the Senate on October 3, 1837, printed in " Works," Vol. Ill, 
p. 125. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 153 

position at the head of the Committee on Foreign Relations 
was already rilled by John Forsyth; but he none the less re- 
mained very prominent upon the floor. The war was still 
going on and the tremendous power of our enemy now com- 
ing to be directed against us alone was a most serious prob- 
lem. Of course, no one knew that peace was in reality less 
than three months off. Questions relating directly to the 
maintenance of the war occupied still the bulk of the time, 
but many others of a vital nature, which the changed cir- 
cumstances after the war were destined to call for, began 
already to be bruited in the halls of legislation. 

Calhoun was in Washington less than a week when, on 
October 25, he spoke upon the recommendation of the Ways 
and Means to add one hundred per cent, to the then amount 
of direct taxes. " He did not rise," he began by saying, " to 
consider whether the war was originally just and necessary; 
much less, whether the opposition, according to the very mod- 
est declaration of the member from New Hampshire [Mr. 
Webster] possessed all the talent and confidence of the coun- 
try." And then he continued in substance that his object was 
to press for immediate action. You have for enemy the most 
implacable of Powers, now freed from any other contest, and 
who will the next campaign, direct his whole force against 
you. He urged action upon members, descanting upon the 
backward state of legislation and, soon coming to the deranged 
state of our finances, went on : " In the next place, it will be 
necessary (he presumed no member could doubt it) to take 
the state of the circulating medium into consideration, and 
to devise some measure to render it more safe and adapted 
to the purposes of finance. The single fact, that we have no 
proper medium, commensurate in its circulation with the 
Union — that it is all local — is calculated to produce much 
embarrassment in the operations of the Treasury. But, sir, 
after we have passed the taxes and established an adequate 
circulating medium, . . . much still will remain to be 
done." 18 

18 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Third Session, 1814-15, Vol. 
Ill, pp. 465-69. 



154 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Calhoun did not take up every partisan cry, and it is per- 
haps worth noting that, when a resolution was introduced for 
a committee to inquire into the question of alleged treason- 
able correspondence by blue lights, he said at once that the 
subject was too small to be worthy the attention of the House 
and hoped it would lie on the table. It was then immediately 
tabled by the decisive vote of 89 to 42. 19 

Broader questions of public policy were far more likely to 
receive his attention. In 1814 Hopkins of New York wanted 
to raise a committee to inquire into the expediency of pro- 
viding by law for the relief of those who had suffered losses 
by irruptions of the enemy on the Niagara frontier; but Cal- 
houn at once had the subject tabled so as to give time to re- 
flect, — on the ground that it introduced a novel principle, — 
and it did not come up again at that session (the Second Ses- 
sion of the Thirteenth Congress). 

Later, however, at the First Session of the Fourteenth Con- 
gress it was again pressed and a law was passed " to authorize 
the payment for property lost, captured, or destroyed by the 
enemy, while in the military service of the United States," 
and a commissioner provided to hear claims. The quoted 
clause or some other obscurity, however, led to such a liberal 
interpretation as threatened to let in a host of cases never 
intended to be included, and at the second session of the same 
Congress Forsyth and some other members wanted the House 
to pass a resolution requesting the President to suspend the 
execution of the law. Calhoun opposed this for reasons 
which will be shown in another place, 20 and the final result 
was the passage of a new statute to explain and limit the ef- 
fect of the original one. 

19 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, 1813-14, 
Vol. I, pp. 1127-29, 1 141. Possibly he was to some extent influenced in 
this matter by his observations of the New England people during his 
years of study. The anonymous author of " Measures, not Men, &c," 
ut supra writes (p. 6), that Calhoun at that time "studied with great 
attention the character of the people of the north-eastern section of the 
Union ; and it was probably the knowledge thus acquired, that enabled 
him, during the darkest moments of our late conflict with Great Britain, 
to contemplate without alarm the storm which lowered in that quarter 
of our horizon. . . . He never doubted that the great body of citizens in 
New England, were firmly attached to the Union." 

20 Infra., p. 214. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 155 

Clay and some others had even sought to enlarge the scope 
of the act, despite recent experience of how such laws are 
pretty sure to be interpreted, but Calhoun was against any 
extension. He suggested the possible burning of New York, 
and urged that individuals must, as in the past, bear the bur- 
den of these disasters. Otherwise, any Government might 
well be bankrupted. There was in this law and the proposed 
enlargement of it, a strong flavor of that private benefit to 
constituents, which has always appealed strongly to our 
American legislators at least, but Calhoun was, I think, mark- 
edly free from such influences. 21 

The chief struggle during the last of the war sessions of 
Congress centred around the effort to establish a national 
bank. It was the third and final meeting of the Thirteenth 
Congress and what is ordinarily the short session, but this 
particular one had met on September 19, 18 14, in pursuance 
of a special call of the President, and did not then adjourn 
until the expiration of the Congress on March 4, 181 5. A 
great part of its time was taken up with the bank question, 
but it will be necessary in the first place to show in a few 
words what had been already done, or at least attempted, 
upon this subject. 

On January 4, 1814, during the second session of the same 
Congress, Lefferts of New York had presented a petition for 
the establishment of a national bank. Upon Calhoun's mo- 
tion, it was printed, and it was then referred, against Cal- 
houn's wishes, to the committee on ways and means, of which 
John W. Eppes, Jefferson's son-in-law, was chairman. Eppes 
was an uncompromising opponent of a national bank, and 
on January 10th reported adversely on the ground of uncon- 
stitutionality. 

This was apparently the end of the matter, but Calhoun was 
full of devices, and on February 4th he suggested that the 
constitutional difficulty might be avoided by establishing the 
bank in the District of Columbia. This proposal was also 

21 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, 1813-14. 
Vol. I, p. 1 141. Ibid., Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-1^, pp. 
1806-1809. Ibid,, Second Session, 1816-17, pp. 246, 291, 390-<)4, 4^8, 4-9, 
1345-47- 



156 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

referred to the committee of ways and means, and on Feb- 
ruary 19th the second member of the committee (Taylor) 
reported a bill to establish in the city of Washington a bank 
with a capital of thirty millions. Eppes, the chairman, seems 
to have been so strongly opposed to any such measure that 
he would not even present the bill, and Taylor expressed him- 
self also as being against it. The proposed bank was to be 
entirely confined to the District, and some members were 
quite clear that such an institution could not possibly furnish 
a uniform national currency. Consequently, an effort was 
made to insert the power to establish branches, but it failed, 
and it was not then long before this plan of Calhoun's proved 
as abortive as had the earlier one of Lefferts. It was silently 
dropped. 

One more effort was made late in the same session. On 
April 2, Grundy moved for a committee upon the subject and 
his nearness to the administration seems to have put life into 
the plan for a time. Grundy's motion was carried by a vote 
of 76 to 69, after the overwhelming defeat of an effort to 
confine the bank to the District. So slight was by that time 
the support of this device of Calhoun that the proposal re- 
ceived only 32 votes. But the session was too far gone for so 
vital a measure to succeed, and it was soon indefinitely post- 
poned. The session adjourned on April 18th. 

During the recess of Congress events of great importance 
occurred, and Ingersoll writes that " the course of hostilities 
. . . gave color, if not cause, for resort to a national insti- 
tution." In the end of August, Washington was captured, 
the administration fugitive, and soon specie payments were 
stopped south of New England. Paper money depreciated 
rapidly, and at varying rates in different parts of the country, 
and the chaos of our finances grew even far worse than it 
had been. One member 22 told the House that " not only had 
Government bills been dishonored, and the interest of the pub- 
lic debt remained unpaid, but ... so completely empty was 
the Treasury, and destitute of credit, that funds could not be 

22 Hanson of Maryland. Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, 
Third Session, 1814-15, Vol. Ill, p. 656. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 157 

obtained to defray the current ordinary expenses of the dif- 
ferent Departments. . . . The Department of State was so 
bare of money as to be unable even to pay its stationery bills. 
. . . Yes, it was well known to the citizens of the District, 
that the Treasury was obligated to borrow pitiful sums, which 
it would disgrace a merchant in tolerable credit to ask for. 
Mr. Hanson mentioned the instance of an acceptance of 
$3500, which the War Department was unable to pay and 
several acceptances, which he himself had seen, for large 
amounts, which had been protested by the public notary. The 
Paymaster was unable to meet demands for paltry sums — 
not even for $30, which was a well established fact." 

This state of affairs was close to chaos and led to other 
events of great importance in relation to a bank. Since Gal- 
latin had gone to Europe to seek peace, in May of 181 3, the 
Treasury had done little but drift in expectation of his re- 
turn. But during the winter of 1813-14 Madison learned 
that Gallatin's return was not to be expected. He had al- 
ready been thinking of a successor and had fixed upon Alex- 
ander James Dallas, a distinguished lawyer of Philadelphia, 
and wanted at once to make the appointment ; but Dallas had 
incurred the hostility of the political leaders in Pennsylvania, 
and his confirmation would have been more than doubtful. 
After the fall of Washington, however, public affairs were in 
such a state that even political rancor cooled off; and In- 
gersoll writes that Senator Lacock of Pennsylvania said to 
the President's private secretary : " Tell Doctor Madison 
that we are now willing to submit to his Philadelphia lawyer 
for head of the Treasury. The public patient is so very sick 
that we must swallow anything the doctor prescribes, how- 
ever nauseous the bolus." Dallas was accordingly nominated 
by Madison on October 5, 18 14, and was confirmed the next 
day. It was well known that his appointment meant a na- 
tional bank. 

Congress was then already sitting, having come together on 
September 19th, for its third and final session, — destined to 
be the last of the war sessions. The Speaker (Cheves) had 
again appointed Eppes Chairman of Ways and Means, but 



158 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

had reconstituted the committee so that the chairman was its 
only anti-bank member. Eppes proposed further issues of 
Treasury notes and some increase of taxation, but called upon 
Dallas for his views, and the latter at once replied strongly 
in favor of a national bank. Soon, too, the House passed a 
resolution for such an institution with branches, and on No- 
vember 7th a bank bill was accordingly reported which was 
in its main features the plan of Dallas. The latter had, at 
his request, been heard by Eppes's committee and had ear- 
nestly enforced his views. 

The capital was to be $50,000,000, — $6,000,000 of the 
amount in specie, the rest in government stock issued during 
the war. The United States was to subscribe $20,000,000. 
The bank could not sell government stock, was to be bound 
to loan the United States $30,000,000, as soon as it went 
into operation, and the President of the United States was 
empowered to suspend specie payments when such suspension 
seemed necessary. The institution was beyond doubt pri- 
marily intended as a means of securing funds to carry on the 
war, and was not at all designed to lead to early resumption. 

It has been seen that Calhoun had arrived late at this ses- 
sion of Congress, owing to an illness, and had found the com- 
mittees all made up when he reached Washington, on October 
19th. The bank question, moreover, was by this time well 
under way in the committee. Eppes had received Dallas's 
reply on the 17th, in which the Secretary expressed the opin- 
ion that a national bank was " the only efficient remedy," and 
one week later (24th) the committee reported to the House 
the resolution in favor of a national bank with branches in 
the several States. This resolution, moreover, passed on Oc- 
tober 28th by the decisive vote of 93 to 54, after the over- 
whelming defeat (138 to 14) of a motion to strike out the 
provision for branches. On both of these votes Calhoun was 
with the majority. 

Some twenty-three years later he told the Senate of his 
connection with the bank question at this time. Immediately 
after his arrival in Washington, he said, he had a full con- 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 159 

versation upon the subject with Dallas, at the latter's request, 
and when the Secretary had explained his plan, Calhoun prom- 
ised to give it early and favorable attention. " At the time," 
he added, " I had reflected but little on the subject of bank- 
ing." He was urged by friends to take a prominent part on 
the subject and soon examined the plan fully, " with every 
disposition to give it my support," but had not gone far before 
he was struck with its extraordinary character : 

"... A bank of $50,000,000 whose capital was to consist 
almost exclusively of Government credit in the shape of stock, 
and not bound to pay its debts during the war, and for three 
years afterwards, to furnish the Government with loans to 
carry on the war. I saw, at once, that the effect of the ar- 
rangement would be, that the Government would borrow back 
its own credit, and pay six per cent, per annum for what they 
had already paid eight or nine. It was impossible for me 
to give it my support under any pressure, however great. I 
felt the difficulty of my situation not only in opposing the 
leading measure of the administration at such a crisis, but, 
what was far more responsible, to suggest one of my own, 
that would afford relief to the embarrassed treasury. I cast 
my eyes around, and soon saw that the Government could use 
its own credit directly, without the intervention of a bank; 
which I proposed to do in the form of treasury notes, to be 
issued in the operations of the Government, and to be funded 
in the subscription to the stock of the bank. Treasury notes 
were, at that time, below par, even with bank paper. The 
opposition to them was so great on the part of the banks, that 
they refused to receive them on deposit, or payment, at par 
with their notes; while the Government, on its part, received 
and paid away notes of the banks at par with its own. Such 
was the influence of the banks, and to such degradation did 
the Government, in its weakness, submit. All this influence 
I had to encounter, with the entire weight of the adminis- 
tration thrown into the same scale. I hesitated not. I saw 
the path of duty clearly, and determined to tread it, sharp 
and rugged as it was — and [so he had said earlier in the 



160 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

same speech] never in my life was I exposed to more calumny 
and abuse. ... It was my first lesson on the subject. I 
shall never forget it." 23 

Thus, the administration had the opposition of a man, 
usually one of its leading supporters, and whose power the 
course of this bill will soon show to have been very great. 
Unfortunately for us here, Calhoun's speeches upon the sub- 
ject have not been preserved, for, in accordance with his gen- 
eral custom when opposing his friends, he declined to publish 
them. His object being merely to defeat the bill and not 
to distract his party or injure the administration, he limited 
himself rigidly to accomplishing his one object and bore in 
patience the denunciations levelled at him. By this course, 
according to the " Autobiography," he generally succeeded 
in maintaining his standing with the party, despite his op- 
position upon the specific point. 

It has been said that the Bank Bill was presented on No- 
vember 7th. The measure was then discussed for a few days, 
and on November 16th Calhoun offered a substitute. His 
already quoted later account of the matter indicates that this 
was his own device, and it was certainly an ambitious under- 
taking for a young man, who himself has told us that he had 
at that time reflected but little on banking, while to this he 
adds in his campaign " Autobiography " that " the whole sub- 
ject of banking, theoretically and practically, was, in a great 
measure, new to him. He had never given it a serious and 
careful attention." 

It seems probable that he was right in his objection to the 
Dallas plan, of which Professor Catterall speaks as " a mon- 
strous scheme," but his substitute was at least equally faulty 
in other ways. He fully intended that " instead of a mere 
paper machine, it should be a specie-paying bank, but it was 
to be based on the issue of new Treasury-notes, thus in real- 
ity still further drowning the country with paper money. It 
will be said later 24 that Calhoun seems to have had a predilec- 
tion for Treasury Notes in these early years, and Ingersoll 

23 Speech of October 3, 1837, in " Works," Vol. Ill, pp. 102, 125-128. 
2 * See p. 195, post. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 161 

adds that there was at this time an outburst among us of 
advocacy of paper money. The apostles of that frequently 
recurring creed denied then, as often since, the value of bul- 
lion and taught the essential superiority of promises to pay. 
" While the bank was undergoing its many trials in Con- 
gress," writes Ingersoll, " even Mr. Calhoun was pleased with 
that novelty. The Notional Intelligencer was filled with its 
metaphysics." 

Calhoun said in his later account that he accompanied his 
amendment with a short speech of fifteen or twenty minutes. 
The speech was, in accordance with his custom when opposed 
to his party, never published, but the " Annals " give an out- 
line of it. They tell us that Calhoun 

... In a very ingenious and elaborate speech, laid before the 
House his views on this subject, and the reasons why he should 
propose a total change in the features of the bill. . . . The capi- 
tal of the bank remaining unchanged at 50 millions, the payments 
of subscriptions to this capital stock to be made in the propor- 
tion of'Vioth in specie (which he afterwards varied to %oths) 
and the remainder in specie or in Treasury notes to be hereafter 
issued : subscriptions to be opened monthly in the last three days 
of each month beginning with January next, for certain propor- 
tions of the stock until the whole is subscribed — payment to be 
made at the time of subscribing; the shares to consist of one hun- 
dred instead of five hundred dollars each. The United States to 
hold no stock in bank, nor any agency in its disposal, nor control 
over its operations, nor rights to suspend specie payments. The 
amount of Treasury notes to be subscribed, viz. 45 millions, to 
be provided for by future Acts of Congress and to be disposed 
of in something like the following way, viz.: 15 millions of the 
amount to be placed in the hands of the agents appointed for the 
purpose, or in the hands of the present Commissioners of the 
Sinking Fund to go into the stock market, to convert the Treas- 
ury notes into stock ; another sum, say five millions, to be applied 
to the redemption of the Treasury notes becoming due at the 
commencement of the ensuing year ; the remaining 20 millions he 
proposed to throw into circulation as widely as possible. They 
might be used in such proportions monthly as to be absorbed in 
the subscriptions to the bank at the end of each month, etc. This 
operation, he presumed, would raise the value of Treasury notes 



162 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

perhaps twenty or thirty per cent, above par, being the value of 
the privilege of taking the bank stock, and thus afford at the same 
time a bonus and an indirect loan to the Government, making 
unnecessary any loan by the bank until its extended circulation 
of paper shall enable it to make a loan which shall be advan- 
tageous to the United States. The Treasury notes so to be is- 
sued to be redeemable in stock at six per cent., disposable by the 
bank at its pleasure, and without the sanction of the Government ; 
to whom neither is the bank to be compelled to loan any money. 
This, it is believed, is, in a few words, a fair statement of the 
project of Mr. Calhoun, which he supported by a variety of 
explanations of its operations, etc. : the notes of the bank, when 
in operation, to be received exclusively in the payment of all 
taxes, duties, and debts to the United States. The operation of 
this combined plan, Mr. Calhoun conceived, would be to afford 
i. Relief from the immediate pressure on the Treasury; 2. A 
permanent elevation of the public credit ; and 3. A permanent and 
safe circulating medium of general credit. The bank should go 
into operation, he proposed, in April next. . . . This motion 
opened a wide and interesting scene of debate. 

Calhoun writes in his "Autobiography," — and the same 
view is pretty clearly expressed in an anonymous pamphlet 25 
of a few years later, — that he thought the administration 
bill had been drawn entirely in the interests of the financial 
classes, while his proposal was designed to guard those of the 
people. The pamphleteer says upon this point that Dallas's 
plan " would have resulted in giving to those from whom the 
government had already borrowed on very disadvantageous 
terms, the additional premium of the bank dividend. . . . 
Calhoun's scheme left the previous creditors of the govern- 
ment precisely where their contract had placed them ; and 
held out to future lenders those privileges which the other 
scheme proposed giving to persons from whom there was 
nothing to expect, at least as the immediate result of the 
scheme." 

The unknown author of this same pamphlet thinks also that 
Calhoun feared that grave results might flow from the vary- 

' B " Measures not Men," &c, ut supra, pp. 15, 16. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 163 

ing degrees of depreciation in different portions of the coun- 
try, for all the import trade would inevitably gravitate 
towards that part where the depreciation was at its worst, and 
hence each section would vie with every other to attain this 
evil pre-eminence. " It requires no great sagacity," so he 
goes on, " to foresee that such a state of things would pro- 
duce collusions extremely dangerous to the union. So deeply 
was Mr. Calhoun impressed with these views of the subject 
that he labored day and night, in the House, and out of it, dur- 
ing the progress of the bank bill, to communicate his impres- 
sions to the members of Congress. His views were so ex- 
clusively national and so obviously disinterested that he finally 
triumphed over the private interest and political opinion with 
which he had to contend." 26 

The debate on Calhoun's substitute need not be followed 
here, nor does it need to be said that his substitute was highly 
disapproved by the Secretary of the Treasury and the leaders 
in general. One prominent member, 27 who was very close 
to Dallas, said that while in his opinion Calhoun's " views 
were exhibited in a clear, connected, and well-digested dis- 
course on this abstruse and complicated subject in which he 
unquestionably showed at least his own preparation and ca- 
pacity for explaining and supporting any favorite project he 
may choose to introduce ... I declare my unequivocal opin- 
ion that his appears to be the most fantastic, impracticable, 
and, I will add, pernicious of all the plans we could adopt, 
calculated inevitably to destroy the public credit of this Gov- 
ernment — to damn it to all eternity." 

Notwithstanding this opinion, which may well have re- 
flected the views of the administration, Calhoun's substitute 
was the next day passed, with the aid of the Federalists, by 
a majority " of about 60 votes." A man who could so quickly 
bring about such a result and completely overthrow the plans 
of the administration, had certainly to be reckoned with. He 
continued very active during the balance of the debate upon 

™Ibid., p. 22. 

27 Charles J. Tngcrsoll of Pennsylvania: "Annals of Congress," Thir- 
teenth Congress, 1814-15, Third Session, Vol. TIT, p. 605. 



1 64 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the subject and said on one occasion that " he was extremely 
anxious that the bank should be established," 2S but this ex- 
pression is evidently to be interpreted as meaning only under 
the then existing circumstances and not in the abstract. 
Speaking some years later in the Senate of his course upon 
the subject in 1816, he said that he " was opposed to the sys- 
tem at the time and so expressed himself in his opening speech 
on the question. In supporting the Bank, then, he yielded to 
what he believed to be the necessity of the case, growing out 
of the connection between the Government and the banks." 29 

But Calhoun's scheme soon met with troubles, and his tri- 
umph was of short duration. He said 30 in later years that 
" the opposition, the adherents of the administration, and those 
who had constitutional scruples " combined against it. Ing- 
ham, Forsyth, and Fisk attacked the plan vigorously, and 
even his close friend Lowndes made an effort to reduce the 
capital from fifty to thirty-five millions. So numerous and 
extensive were the amendments, many of them carried by 
decisive majorities, that the " Annals " record that, when the 
bill was at length reported from the committee of the whole 
to the House, " it was so interleaved and interlined with 
amendments . . . that the clerk himself could hardly arrange 
them or the Speaker state them to the House [and] it was 
ordered to lie on the table, and be printed as amended." 

The House was indeed at a deadlock, and on November 25, 
Lowndes had the bill referred to another select committee, 
in the hope that they might reconcile conflicting views and in- 
terests. Lowndes, Fisk, Calhoun, Ingham, Forsyth, Oakley, 
and Gaston were the committee, and the chairman was di- 
rected by them to write to Dallas for his opinion. Dallas, 
who was born in Jamaica, was, according to Ingersoll, a man 
of " tropical excitability." At least once during his bank 
troubles he threatened to resign, and he would shed tears at 

28 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Third Session, 1814-15, 
Vol. Til, p. 643. 

29 Speech on his Slavery Resolutions of 1838: " Works," Vol. Ill, p. 172; 
see also " Autohiogrnphy," p. 22. 

80 Speech of October 3, 1837, in Senate; "Works." Ill, pp. 102 et seq., 
127. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 165 

the trials he was subjected to, but there was no uncertain 
sound in his reply to this inquiry. 

He opposed most strongly Calhoun's Treasury note plan, 
which would, he said, give a gratuitous advantage to new cred- 
itors over the old ones and would thus excite dissatisfaction 
among the latter, as well as among capitalists in general, and 
have an injurious effect on our credit and upon the prospects 
of a loan for 181 5. The present owners, he went on, can 
only become subscribers to such a bank by selling their hold- 
ings at a loss in order to procure the needed Treasury notes, 
" and a general depression in the value of the public debt will 
inevitably ensue." The experiment, too, of issuing so large 
an amount ($44,000,000) of Treasury notes was in his opin- 
ion of very uncertain success, and he even thought it would be 
impossible to get them into circulation, with or without de- 
preciation. Professor Catterall is of opinion that Dallas's 
answer " annihilated Calhoun's position." 

Efforts were made to bring Calhoun and Dallas together, 
but they were all unavailing, and in a short time Lowndes re- 
ported the bill back to the House from his committee, because 
of their inability to agree. Lowndes's motion to reduce the 
capital to $30,000,000 was then carried, with the aid of the 
Federalists and against Calhoun's zealous opposition, and 
shortly afterwards the whole scheme was defeated on third 
reading by 104 Nays to 49 Ayes. It was at this time in large 
part based on Calhoun's plan, so that the House had finally 
turned its back on his amendment, which had but a couple of 
weeks before swept everything before it. His triumph had 
been short, indeed. 

The Senate next took the matter up and soon passed a bill 
based on Dallas's plan. When this measure reached the 
House, it was for some time hotly discussed. Ingersoll writes 
that December 28, 18 14, was " the stormiest bank day of the 
session"; but finally, on January 2, 1815, after Webster had 
made a speech upon the whole general subject, — which was, 
according to Ingersoll, " quite superior to anything said on 
either side during the session," — the final vote was taken and 



1 66 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

turned out to be 8 1 for and 80 against. Lowndes voted Aye 
and Calhoun No, but the bank men were once more doomed 
to disappointment, for Speaker Cheves, owing to his strong 
convictions against paper money, announced, — so the " An- 
nals " record, — " with even more than his usual eloquence and 
impressiveness " his opinion that the measure was a dangerous 
and desperate experiment and that he should therefore exer- 
cise his right and vote against it. This reduced the vote to a 
tie, so once more the bank was lost. 

At this point the strain seems to have been for a moment 
too great for Calhoun. Webster told a friend years later that 
upon the final loss of this bill, Calhoun, though opposed to the 
particular measure, was so much overcome at the predicament 
in which the government was left, with the finances in hope- 
less confusion and no means of carrying on the war, that he 
" walked across the floor of the House to the spot where Mr. 
Webster stood, and holding out both his hands to Mr. Webster, 
and telling him that he should rely on his assistance in prepar- 
ing a new bill, burst into tears, as Mr. Webster assured him 
the assistance should not be withheld." 31 

The persistence of members was, however, not yet ex- 
hausted. After the bank was thus lost by a tie vote, recon- 
sideration was moved and carried and the whole plan then 
once again referred to a fresh special committee, and they 
in turn reported a bill which was to a considerable extent based 
on Calhoun's plan, though with several modifications. The 
stock was to be $30,000,000, composed of $5,000,000 of specie, 
$10,000,000 of war stock and $15,000,000 of treasury notes. 
The Dallas provisions for a compulsory loan and giving power 
to the President to suspend specie payments were not included. 
The bill passed the House shortly by a large majority, and 
then, after a vain struggle to amend, the Senate yielded and 
accepted the House bill as it stood, but still again the result 
was failure, for the President vetoed on the grounds that too 
much specie and too few notes were called for as the founda- 
tion of the bank and that it was made too independent of the 
Government. 

81 Curtis's " Webster," Vol. I, p. 143. Webster told this story to George 
Ticknor, who made a record of it and later communicated it to Curtis. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 167 

One vital point of difference between opposing interests in 
Congress all through the long struggle had been as to the 
character of the stocks which should compose the capital, and 
Ingfersoll writes that it was to this difference that the whole 
scheme fell a victim. The great point was whether any United 
States stock might serve this purpose, or whether the advan- 
tage should be confined to war loans. Dallas's plan provided 
for the latter, and the Federalists, wanting the profit of the 
bank to enure to their benefit as well as to that of the support- 
ers of the war, were strongly opposed to this feature. Cal- 
houn's plan of basing the institution on treasury notes to be 
issued, is said to have largely avoided 32 this point of differ- 
ence, but many were the compromises offered in this " battle 
of the stocks." 

The session was nearing its end and nothing had been ac- 
complished, so a caucus was called which Calhoun and his 
friends were specially invited to attend. A compromise was 
then proposed based in part on his plan and in part on that 
of Dallas. Calhoun found this much nearer his idea, but still 
objectionable in some particulars, and he demanded further 
concessions. These were, however, refused, and he was told 
the bill could be passed without the aid of himself and his 
friends, upon which, he says, " I took up my hat and bade 
good night." The proposed bill was then easily passed in the 
Senate and sent to the House. On second reading, Calhoun 
says that he reminded members that they were about to vote 
for a measure, against their frequently expressed conviction, 
spurred on by a supposed necessity which had been created by 
those expecting to profit from it. They all knew, he told them, 
that the bill would not receive fifteen votes, if peace should 
arrive before its passage. 

This suggestion must, for reasons which will immediately 
be apparent, have been made by him on Monday, February 
13th, on which date the "Annals" merely record that he 
delivered " a pithy speech of moderate length." At the time, 

32 Catterall's "Second Bank," p. 12. I am unable to understand this, 
and it seems to me that Calhoun's plan was equally intended for the 
benefit of the holders of war issues. In his speech he expressed the opin- 
ion that it would largely raise the market value of Treasury notes,— which 
were entirely issued during the war. 



1 68 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

he says, he had not the slightest anticipation of peace. The 
war had indeed never shown a more grim visage and England 
was making extensive preparations for the coming campaign. 
But that very evening Sturges, a member from Connecticut, 
told Calhoun in confidence that a treaty of peace had arrived 
in New York. He had heard of it by express from his 
brother, a merchant in that city, who wanted the news sent 
on at once to his connected houses in the South, so that they 
might buy the great staples at the then prevailing war prices. 
Calhoun kept the secret, but it was too big to be hidden under 
a bushel, and the very next day ( 14th) was generally known, 
and on the 15th officially announced. 33 

Calhoun said in his speech of 1837 that when peace was gen- 
erally rumored the House declined to act until positive in- 
formation should be received, and then on his motion the bill 
was laid on the table, " and I had the gratification of receiving 
the thanks of many for defeating the bill, who, a short time 
before, were almost ready to cut my throat for my persevering 
opposition to the measure. An offer was then made to me 
to come to my terms, which I refused, declaring that I would 
rise in my demand, and would agree to no bill which should 
not be formed expressly with the view to the speedy restora- 
tion of specie payments. It was afterwards postponed, on 
the conviction that it could not be so modified as to make it 
acceptable to a majority." 

These details are all no doubt strictly accurate, though they 
do not appear either in Ingersoll or in the very incomplete 
" Annals." According to these latter authorities, a few days 
following the news of peace were passed in rejoicing, before 
the bank bill was again taken up in the House. On the 17th, 
there was desultory debate and some members wanted to press 
the bill on, but it was of course apparent that peace had put 
an entirely new face upon the matter, and before very long 
Lowndes suggested this fact and moved indefinite postpone- 

83 Parton's " Jackson," Vol. IT, pp. 249-55, being the account given many 
years later by the editor of the " National Intelligencer." Ingersoll 
(" Second War," Vol. II, 1814, p. 311, but see p. 261) writes that the official 
treaty was delivered to Madison in Washington " on Tuesday evening the 
13th." But Tuesday was in reality the 14th. See also Schouler's " His- 
tory," Vol. II, p. 430. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 169 

ment. It may be fairly surmised that he took this step, after 
Calhoun had been sounded and had insisted on provisions 
which it was perfectly apparent could not pass. Lowndes's 
motion was carried by the close vote of 74 to 73, Calhoun 
voting Nay, and thus the eighth 34 consecutive effort to es- 
tablish a national bank had failed, and the administration was 
compelled still to get on as best it could without the assistance 
of an agency which was in their opinion indispensable. The 
war was over, but the whole financial system left in awful con- 
fusion. Out of these circumstances arose other great policies, 
to which we must now turn. It will be necessary, moreover, 
to go backward somewhat in time. 

Probably, the most important of the policies referred to was 
the tariff, and this subject is of great moment in a Life of 
Calhoun, for reasons which are obvious enough. During the 
time of the restrictive system and the war, a number of lines 
of manufacture had sprung up in our country, entirely new 
and at least many of them dependent for their existence upon 
the exclusion of competing foreign goods. What was to be 
done with these? This question came up for discussion be- 
fore the end of the war, and was first brought into prominence 
about the time of the final repeal of the restrictive system. 
The repeal threatened to let foreign goods find their way into 
the country, and doubtless the manufacturers at once grew 
anxious upon the bare rumor of such a plan. 

It has already been seen 35 that, on April 6, 1814, during 
the Second Session of the Thirteenth Congress, the House 
went into committee of the whole upon Calhoun's motion on 
the bill which he had introduced two days before to repeal in 
general the restrictive system. It was there shown that this 

"Ingersoll ("Second War" (1814), Vol. II, p. 261) counts this as the 
ninth effort, while Prof. Catterall ("Second Bank," pp. 16, Zi) calls it 
the sixth. It seems to me to be the eighth, hut naturally persons reckon 
variously where it is not clear whether a particular motion is different to 
a sufficient degree to constitute a new plan or not. My account of the 
bank struggle is based chiefly on Catterall's "Second Bank," pp. 1-21 ; 
Ingersoll's "Second War," Vol. II (1814), PP- 240-263; and the Annals 
of Congress. I am very greatly indebted to Prof. Catterall's account, and 
have to a considerable extent relied on it. Ingersoll was an eyewitness 
of and participant in nearly all he relates. 

35 Ante, p. 136. 



170 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

measure had been recommended by the President in a message 
of March 31. On April 5, 1814, so closely were all these 
plans bound together, Ingham of Pennsylvania offered in the 
House a resolution that " the Secretary of the Treasury be 
directed to report to Congress, at their next session, a general 
tariff of duties, conformably to the existing situation of the 
general and local interests of the United States " ; and this, 
after a short discussion, was agreed to without objection. 

With these proposals in mind, and in view of all the cir- 
cumstances then prevailing, Calhoun spoke as follows upon 
the proposed repeal of the restrictive system : 

" He, as a grower of produce, should certainly feel an inter- 
est in striking out that section," he said, referring to the third 
section, which contained provisions still to restrict the freedom 
of foreign shipping, " as it was the interest of the planter to 
let commerce run in any channel it might wear for itself. . . . 
As to the manufacturing interest, it could not be considered 
as disregarded when there existed a duty of fifty per certt. on 
the invoice duty [value?] of foreign goods. If this was not 
encouragement, he knew not what was. The vote of the 
House yesterday [upon Ingham's motion] required a general 
tariff to be laid before it [and?] conveyed a pledge that the 
manufacturing interest should be protected. Double duties 
would not protect it properly : double duties on coffee and 
sugar offered no encouragement to the manufacture of broad- 
cloth. He hoped to see manufacturing encouraged by appro- 
priate duties, and had no idea of their being left without such 
protection." 

Later in the same day, while opposing a motion to strike out 
the second section, which repealed the non-importation acts, 
Calhoun said further as follows : 

He thought the gentleman was mistaken in supposing that our 
infant manufacturing institutions would be embarrassed by this 
measure. What was the encouragement they now received from 
the Government? The ad valorem duties now averaged about 
33% P er cent. Most of the importation being in neutral bottoms, 
the discriminating duty of 10 per cent, on such importations in 
foreign vessels would make it 43 per cent, and when were added 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 171 

to this the freight and other expenses incident to a state of war, 
the actual duty on foreign and premium to domestic manufactures 
could not be less than 50 per cent. Was it wise to extend to 
our manufacturers further encouragement than this? During a 
state of war too great a stimulus was naturally given to manu- 
factures — a stimulus so great that it could not be expected to be 
continued in a time of peace; and when peace comes, come when 
peace will, the vicissitude which manufacturers must experience 
will be much greater and injurious to them, if besides the double 
duties the restrictive system were retained, than it ought to or 
would otherwise be. The great requisite to the due encourage- 
ment of manufacturers now was, that certain manufactures in 
cotton and woolens, which have kindly taken root in our soil, 
should have a moderate but permanent protection insured to them. 
He knew not how that object could be better effected than by 
the scheme of establishing a new tariff of duties, which this House 
had shown a determination to adopt. To continue the present 
non-importation system merely to protect manufactures, when 
they received already so much protection, would be dangerous 
instead of beneficial to them. 36 

Such were the opinions upon this subject expressed by Cal- 
houn during the latter part of the war. The legislative result 
was that the restrictive system was swept away and the new 
manufacturing establishments in the country left to the rates 
of protection indicated in Calhoun's speech above, including 
that incident to the regulation of foreign vessels trading from 
our ports. A hope' was held out, too, of a general tariff bill 
from the next Congress. 

The treaty of peace with Great Britain, concluded Decem- 
ber 24, 18 1 4, became generally, as well as officially, known in 
Washington on Tuesday, February 14, 181 5, and had been 
generally rumored the day before. 37 It was beyond doubt 
even a greater relief to the public men in charge of govern- 
ment than to the citizens at large. That it had come to us 
after many a disaster, as well as some few great triumphs, 
may be freely admitted. None the less, the triumphs were ol 
a character deeply to inspire the young nation, which had 

86 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, 1813-14, Second Session, 
Vol. II, pp. 1983, 1984, 1989, 1990. 

87 See ante, pp. 167, 168. 



i 7 2 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

with such splendid audacity thrown down the gauntlet of chal- 
lenge to the giant power of England. Nor was it the only- 
boon of about that same date. Barely ten days earlier, knowl- 
edge of Jackson's overwhelming victory at New Orleans had 
first come through snow and ice and varying rumors of dis- 
aster to the ears of our people breathless with suspense, and 
every American had felt his heart thrill with that pride which 
led Clay, far away in Paris, to break out : " Now I can go to 
England without mortification." 

It was indeed an intoxicating moment, and many a flight of 
per- fervid eloquence was indulged in among us, but the only 
slight ebullition of the kind on Calhoun's part which I have 
found is contained in his words : 38 "I feel pleasure and pride 
in being able to say that I am of a party which drew the sword 
on this question, and succeeded in the contest ; for, to all prac- 
tical purposes, we have achieved complete success." 

The war left its deep impress on him as on so many of his 
countrymen and was a potent factor in ending our minority 
and welding us into one nation. Its influence in this direction 
was beyond doubt the main cause which led him to urge in 
1816 our complete freedom from the leading-strings of the 
former mother-country. " Much anxiety," he said, " has re- 
cently been evinced to be independent of English broad-cloths 
and muslins. He hoped it indicated the approach of a period 
when we should also throw ofr* the thraldom of thought." 39 

The Third Session of the Thirteenth Congress adjourned 
sine die on March 4, 18 15, and Calhoun then went South to 
be with his family for a time and look after home interests. 
He reached Bath on March 20th, and within three weeks had 
the misfortune to lose the only daughter he then had, Floride 
by name, a child of over a year. She was " in the bloom of 
health " one morning and was dead the next day. The ap- 
palling suddenness of the loss was a fearful blow to him, as 
well as to the bereaved mother, and his efforts to console the 
latter were quite without success. As indicating the tendency 
of his mind at this time to find the hand of the Deity person- 

88 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Third Session, 1814-15, 
Vol. Ill, p. 1246. 

89 Ibid., Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, p. 532. 



ACTIVITIES IN CONGRESS 173 

ally directing his affairs and his apparent reliance upon the 
stock consolations of the pastorate, the following from his let- 
ter 40 to his mother-in-law should be reproduced : 

So fixed in sorrow is her distressed mother that every topick 
of consolation, which I attempt to offer but seems to grieve her 
the more. It is in vain I tell her it is the lot of humanity ; that 
almost all parents have suffered equal calamity; that Providence 
may have intended it in kindness to her and ourselves, as no 
one can say what, had she lived, would have been her condition, 
whether it would have been happy or miserable ; and above all 
we have the consolation to know that she is far more happy than 
she could be here with us. 

Many have perhaps found consolation in such a trite phi- 
losophy of human affairs, but surely to a mother's heart rent 
in twain the words might well seem merely vapid and cruel. 

40 " Calhoun Correspondence," pp. 128, 129. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

Circumstances of the Day — The Tariff of 1816 — Second 
Bank Established — The Salary Bill — Internal Improve- 
ments — Calhoun's Early Views. 

The First Session of the Fourteenth Congress was to meet 
at the usual time in December of 181 5, and Calhoun arrived 
in Washington on the 28th of November, having " performed 
the journey in a shorter time than what I expected by several 
days," as he wrote his wife on the 29th. At Raleigh he had 
met John Taylor of South Carolina and made the journey 
with him the rest of the way. He adds that " the last 53 miles 
is performed by a steamboat ; nothing can be superior to that 
mode of conveyance whether we regard the safety, ease or 
expedition of traveling. You are moved on rapidly without 
being sensible of it. I hope by another session there will be 
one from Charleston to the place." 

The House convened on December 4th and upon that day 
Calhoun took his seat. On the 6th, in accordance with custom, 
various parts of the message were referred to special com- 
mittees, and Calhoun was named Chairman of that on Uni- 
form National Currency. This was of course, as the " Auto- 
biography " says, owing to his prominence on the bank ques- 
tion in the prior Congress ; and it may be surmised that the 
power he had shown at that time compelled his selection. He 
was also third on a Committee in regard to a National Semin- 
ary of Learning in the District of Columbia, but I have not 
found that he took any part in the work of this committee. 
Wilde of Georgia was its chairman. 

As the tariff was under discussion but a few pages back, it 
will be best to take that subject up first and thus place close 
together all the material bearing upon the course of Calhoun 

174 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 175 

on one leading branch of our policy during the early years of 
his public life. He has always been charged, since his death 
as well as before, with grave inconsistency upon this subject 
as well as others at different periods of his career, and the 
whole question had best be gone into here. The record shows 
beyond peradventure that at this time he advocated protection 
to manufactures in repeated speeches and votes. But it would 
be very unjust to let the matter stand upon these actions alone, 
without regard to the circumstances surrounding him, and 
which made the question look so different from what it does 
now or even did a decade and a half after the speeches were 
made. Let us try to realize what those circumstances were. 

Calhoun began public life with the inception of a war, which 
he had aided to bring about, and no man exists who would not 
unconsciously have his principles of government warped by 
the necessities of his country's circumstances at such a moment. 
It was inevitable that the sphere of federal functions, as defined 
by the Constitution, should grow in his eyes. Again, when 
the war was over, the financial system was chaos, the govern- 
ment hardly able to pay its daily debts, and citizens, who had 
risked their fortunes in manufacturing plants during the abso- 
lute closure of our ports by war, were faced with bankruptcy, 
unless the government should aid them by keeping our ports 
still to some extent closed against the competition of long- 
established foreign goods. Surely the inducements to estab- 
lish the system of protection, a national bank, and other 
measures apparently necessary to save the country from ruin 
were strong enough to induce even the most sturdy believer in 
State Rights to yield a good deal, — and I know of no evidence 
that Calhoun had at this time paid much attention to the teach- 
ings of that school. 

In our early days, moreover, the very existence of the new 
nation, known as the United States, was problematical. 
Causes within ourselves might well have cut short our career, 
and foreign powers looked upon us with a distrust quite capa- 
ble of leading to some more or less successful effort to stunt 
our growth, if not to destroy us. The War of 1812, — tin- 
Second War of Independence, as Calhoun and other war- 



176 



LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 



hawks often called it, — showed that we were not to be de- 
spised, when aroused, but showed also to those behind the 
scenes the awful inefficiency of our administrative system. 
The inherent capabilities of the people alone enabled us then 
to accomplish anything. The few splendid triumphs we won 
were due but little to government, — almost entirely to the 
bravery and fiery energy of some independent command, too 
far away to be hampered by the timid counsels and halting 
methods prevailing at Washington. 

When that war came to an end, too, and when shortly after- 
ward Napoleon was finally overthrown, the crowned heads of 
Europe soon formed the Holy Alliance, with the view of 
united action to prevent the spread of those popular principles 
which had been so prominent a feature in our career, as well 
as in the French Revolution and in Bonaparte's earlier public 
actions. One of the powers concerned hoped to turn this 
device into a means of preventing the successful revolt of her 
wide-spread American possessions, and here was a means by 
which we might easily have become involved in some contest 
with the united powers of Europe. These powers may be 
said to have been the civilized world, for even England, while 
declining formally to join the Alliance, did not at first offer 
any real resistance to its policy. Here was a terrible menace 
to us, and no wonder that some of our public men were deeply 
impressed by these dangers and wanted to prepare to meet 
them by developing our strength. 

Add to this the tangible and so vital fact already mentioned, 
— that after our war manufacturing establishments in some 
numbers existed in parts of the country, and what was the 
public man to do, who was impressed with the dangers from 
without and had supported the very measures, — the restrictive 
system, the war, the higher duties of that time, — which had 
led to the growth of those manufactures so useful to us during 
the war? This was the question presented to Calhoun's mind 
at the period of his career we have reached. How could the 
views of a man with such a history, and who was himself 
deeply impressed with the dangers to our country from with- 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 177 

out, 1 fail to be profoundly influenced by all these circumstances 
in which he had lived ? 

It ought, then, to surprise no one, and is at least plain be- 
yond peradventure, that in his early years Calhoun was in favor 
of a rather splendid government and of liberal expenditures in 
every direction that he thought likely to increase our strength 
and to knit our several peoples, — for such they were, — into 
one strong and solidly united nation. The tariff, the bank, 
internal improvements, a navy of considerable strength, an 
army such as could be rapidly turned into a formidable engine, 
— all had his decided support. 

These measures were, moreover, all dovetailed together and 
went to form one harmonious whole. The debt could not be 
gradually paid, nor could the powerful government be main- 
tained without liberal expenditures, and hence taxation in 
some form was vitally necessary. The tariff was intended 
on all hands, then as now, to be a chief source of our income, 
and the discussions of it by Calhoun are all largely colored by 
this view. The doctrine of protection in the modern sense had 
not then taken its place in the public affairs of the country, 
and no one even proposed a law, whose only or main purpose 
was " to foster our infant industries." At the same time, 
there can, in my opinion, be no doubt whatsoever that at this 
date Calhoun was largely influenced in all he did or said upon 
the subject by the desire so to arrange the laws as to exclude 
from our markets foreign goods likely to compete with the 
domestic manufactures which had grown up during the war, 
and thus to protect the home-made article and the manufac- 
turer. 

Nor does the record of his speeches admit of the view that 
he was guided exclusively by the purpose of securing the 
largest income, without regard to saving the manufacturers 
from foreign competition. As far as I can judge him, his 
motives in fixing the rates were two : one, — possibly the main 
one, — to secure income, the other to protect our new manu- 

1 The " Autobiography," p. 20, tells us that this was the case, and Cal- 
houn's speeches show the same thing. See, also, his " Correspondence, 
pp. a 1 8, 219. 




178 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

factures. And this second motive seems to me to have been 
as much a substantive one with him as the first. It certainly 
cannot be hidden away under the cloak of " incidental " pro- 
tection, and indeed in 1833 he admitted 2 that the protective 
principle was recognized by the Act of 181 6. 

We may fairly assume that his views had been influenced 
by the growth of protection sentiment in his home state at 
about this period, 3 and it is plainly evident that the Republican 
party had to some extent come under the same influence. As 
early as 1792, there was an effort made in Congress to secure 
protection for cotton, and even Macon advocated this measure. 
Again, two years later, both Jefferson and Madison were con- 
cerned in proceedings looking generally towards protection, 
and once more in 1809 some Republicans sought to extend the 
then existing system. These efforts failed; but they serve 
well to show the existence of the sentiment. 4 By 181 5, too, it 
had grown to such an extent that Madison wrote in his Message 
of December 5, at the opening of the First Session of the 
Fourteenth Congress, " In adjusting the duties on imports to 

2 In his speech on the Force Bill in the Senate on Fehruary 15-16, 1833, 
he said of the Act of 1816: "It introduced, besides, the obnoxious mini- 
mum principle, which has since been so mischievously extended ; and to 
that extent, I am constrained in candor to acknowledge, as I wish to 
disguise nothing, the protective principle was recognized by the act of 
1816. How this was overlooked at the time, it is not in my power to say. 
It escaped my observation, which I can account for only on the ground 
that the principle was then new, and that my attention was engaged by 
another important subject — the question of the currency." "Works," 
Vol. II, p. 206. It will shortly be shown (infra., pp. 183-186), that Calhoun 
spoke in favor of the minimum, and against Randolph's motion to strike 
the provision out, during the debates on the Act of 1816. The most 
undeniable advocacy of protection by him that I have found is con- 
tained in his speech of April 6, 1814 (quoted in part supra, p. 170), 
on the repeal of the embargo, when he said ("Works," Vol. II, 103-110), 
"As to the manufacturing interest, in regard to which some fears have 
been expressed, the resolution voted by the House yesterday [on Ingham's 
motion, directing the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare a tariff bill], 
is a strong pledge that it will not suffer the manufacturers to be un- 
protected, in case of a repeal of the restrictive system. I hope that at 
all times and under every policy, they will be protected with due care." 

3 See post, pp. 189-191. 

4 Wm. E. Dodd's " Nathaniel Macon," pp. 66, 67 citing Annals of Con- 
gress, Second Congress, First Session, p. 560; Ibid., pp. 246, 247, citing 
Annals of Congress, Eleventh Congress, Vol. I, pp. 182-186; Taussig's 
"Tariff History" C1888), p. 14, citing Jefferson's Report on Commerce, 
" Works," Vol. VII, p. 637, and Madison's Resolutions, Annals of Con- 
gress, 1794, pp. 155, 209. 






THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 179 

the object of revenue, the influence of the tariff on manufac- 
tures will necessarily present itself for consideration. . . . 
Under circumstances giving a powerful impulse to manufac- 
turing industry, it has made among us a progress, and ex- 
hibited an efficiency, which justify the belief that, with a pro- 
tection not more than is due to the enterprising citizens, whose 
interests are now at stake, it will become, at an early day, not 
only safe against occasional competitions from abroad, but a 
source of domestic wealth, and even of external commerce." 

It may almost be said that every one of the speeches of Cal- 
houn at this early period shows his desire to increase the 
strength of the United States Government and to render us 
in a high degree capable of taking care of ourselves. The 
best way to enable the reader to form an independent judg- 
ment upon this point will be to extract to a considerable extent 
from the speeches in question. In so doing, it will be neces- 
sary to introduce several subjects other than the one of the 
tariff now mainly in view, for in this one particular they are 
all similar. 

Thus, early in January, 18 16, upon a bill to establish three 
additional Military Academies, he said 5 that the object of the 
bill was " to contribute to the national security, by the diffu- 
sion of military knowledge," and that the only question was 
as to the best mode to produce a national spirit. He hoped 
" it would not be long before we should have one [Military 
Academy] in every considerable state of the Union. Mr. Cal- 
houn compared the feelings of this House now and previous 
to the war. Now, he said, we see everywhere a nationality of 
feeling; we hear sentiments from every part of the House in 
favor of Union, and against a sectional spirit. What had 
produced this change? The glory acquired by the late war, 
and the prosperity which had followed it. . . . He believed 
the provisions of this bill were more important than any yet 
on the table of the House, and as important as any that would 
come before the House at the present session." 

During the same First Session of the Fourteenth Congress, 

5 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, pp. 
430, 431- 



180 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

another South Carolinian, Lowndes, was chairman of the 
Committee on Ways and Means, to which fell in the main ques- 
tions of the tariff and revenue generally. On January 9, 1816, 
he reported a bill to make certain reductions in the revenue, 
and in the debate members were urgent to cut off still further 
sources of income. This was very far from Calhoun's wishes, 
and his speech upon the subject will serve to show how deeply 
his mind was then impressed with the absolute necessity of 
large governmental expenditures. "If gentlemen," he said, 6 
" were of opinion that our navy ought not to be improved ; 
that internal improvements should not be prosecuted; if these 
were their sentiments, they were right in desiring to abolish all 
taxes. If they thought otherwise, it was absurd, it was pre- 
posterous to say, that we should not lay taxes on the people. 
Mr. Calhoun said gentlemen ought not to give into the con- 
tracted idea that taxes were so much money taken from the 
people; properly applied, the money proceeding from taxes 
was money put out to the best possible interest for the people. 
He wished, he said, to see the nation free from external dan- 
gers and internal difficulty. . . . The broad question was now 
before the House, whether this Government should act on an 
enlarged policy; whether it would avail itself of the experi- 
ence of the last war; whether it would be benefitted by the 
mass of knowledge acquired within the few last years ; or 
whether we should go on in the old imbecile mode, contributing 
by our measures nothing to the honor, nothing to the reputa- 
tion of the country." 

Again, a few days later, he spoke upon the same general 
subject as follows : 7 "I am sure that future wars with Eng- 
land are not only possible, but I will say more, that they are 
highly probable — nay, that they will certainly take place. 
Future wars, I fear, with the honorable Speaker, future wars, 
long and bloody, will exist between this country and Great 
Britain — I lament it — but I will not close my eyes on events 
— I will speak what I believe to be true." 

He then went on to express his reliance upon the Navy and 

6 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, pp. 
728, 729. 

7 Ibid., pp. 829-40. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 181 

wanted largely to put our strength into it. He would also arm 
the militia, extend their term of service and in general increase 
their efficiency. He knew the danger of large standing armies, 
and looked upon the militia as the true force, " but they are 
not," he added, " a safe defence without making their efficiency 
greater." 

" Your defence," he went on, " ought to depend on the land, 
on a regular draught from the body of the people." . . . Mr. 
Calhoun then proceeded to a point of less but yet of great im- 
portance, — he meant the establishment of roads and opening 
of canals in various parts of the country. ..." Your popu- 
lation is widely dispersed. . . . We ought to contribute as 
much as possible to the formation of good military roads, not 
only on the score of general political economy, but to enable 
us on emergencies to collect the whole mass of our military 
means on the point menaced." . . . 

Mr. Calhoun proceeded to another topic, the encouragement 
proper to be afforded to the industry of the country. In re- 
gard to the question how far manufacturers ought to be fos- 
tered, Mr. Calhoun said it was the duty of this country, as a 
means of defence, to encourage the domestic industry of the 
country; more especially that part of it which provides the 
necessary materials for clothing and defence. ..." I lay the 
claims of the manufacturers entirely out of view," said Mr. 
Calhoun, " but on general principles, without regard to their 
interest, a certain encouragement should be extended, at least, 
to our woolen and cotton manufactures." 

" This nation," such was his peroration, " is in a situation 
similar to that which one of the most beautiful writers of an- 
tiquity paints Hercules in his youth. He represents the hero 
as retiring into the wilderness to deliberate on the course of 
life which he ought to pursue. Two Goddesses approach him : 
one recommended to him a life of ease and pleasure: the other 
of labor and virtue. The hero adopted the counsel of the lat- 
ter, and his fame and glory are known to the world. May this 
nation, the youthful Hercules, possessing his form and muscles, 
be inspired with similar sentiments and follow his example." 

Even more remarkable were some other views in regard to 



1 82 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the general nature of our government which he held at about 
this date and for a number of years. Thus, in 1813, he 
wrote : 8 

The Supreme Court of the Union performs the highest func- 
tions under our system. It is the mediator between sovereigns, 
the State and General Governments, and the actual line, which 
separates their authority, must be drawn by this high tribunal. 

Again, we are told, 9 that in 1824-25, at an evening party, 
to which he had asked J. A. Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton's 
son, Calhoun expressed admiration for his guest's father and 
then went on : 

" Sir, I have a clear conviction after much reflection and an 
entire knowledge and familiarity with the history of our coun- 
try and the working of our Government, that his policy as de- 
veloped by the measures of Washington's administration, is 
the only true policy for the country." 

Small wonder that later, when his opinions had so greatly 
changed, his early views were quoted at times against him. 10 ^ 

Some of the speeches, which have been quoted, show well 
how remarkably free the young Calhoun was from that special 
devotion to the interests of his own section which often guided 
his actions in later life. A very broad nationalism was then, 
— as well as for a number of years afterwards, — most con- 
spicuous in his character, and the special interests of his quar- 
ter of the Union carried but little weight. This will appear 
more than once hereafter and seems to have been recognized n 
at the time ; but one instance is so striking that it ought to be 
specially mentioned. 

In December, 18 14, a measure was pending in the House to 
draft some 80,000 militia, and Macon had offered an amend- 
ment to change the apportionment of the draft among the 

8 Letter of June II, 1823, to Virgil Maxcy contained in the Maxcy- 
Markoe Collection in Library of Congress. 

J. A. Hamilton's " Reminiscences," p. 62. Hamilton thought that 
Calhoun, then a candidate for the Presidency, expected him to communi- 
cate these views to his Federal friends. 

10 See e. g. " The Charleston Courier " of 1829-30, passim. 

11 See speech of Grosvenor quoted post, p. 219. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 183 

States, so as to base it on " the military strength " (i.e. the 
free white population), instead of on the basis of federal 
representation, as the bill provided. Under the latter provi- 
sion, the South's quota would have been very much larger of 
course, for three-fifths of the negroes would have been counted 
in ascertaining it. Calhoun not only voted against Macon's 
amendment (which was defeated) but spoke against it on the 
floor and said " he should vote for this provision of the bill as 
it now stands, upon the ground of liberality and generosity; 
that, as the Southern States had a considerable agency in the 
declaration of war and bringing about the present state of 
things, he is willing to take hold of the laboring oar." 12 

Such were some of Calhoun's views upon questions of 
national power and functions in his early years. The same 
general opinions came out, too, during the debates upon the 
tariff and particularly upon the bills of 18 16, to which we 
must now more directly turn our attention. While this meas- 
ure was under discussion, Huger of South Carolina moved to 
reduce the duties on sugar, but Lowndes from the same State 
was against the motion and " argued that the manufacture of 
sugar demanded encouragement as strongly as any other." 
Calhoun, too, opposed the motion and "dwelt 13 on the great 
importance of the article, and the expediency of encouraging 
its production in our own country, by which our supplies would 
be so much more certain; and he enforced particularly the 
necessity of encouraging all those articles at home, for which 
we now depended on the W. Indies, to which our trade was 
so precarious that a proclamation from the Governor of an 
island might any moment cut it off." 

But his chief speech upon the tariff bill was made in oppo- 
sition to a motion of John Randolph to strike out so much of 
the proviso to the second section as fixed the minimum price 
of cotton goods (except nankeens direct from China) at 25 

12 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Third Session, 1814-15, 
Vol. Ill, pp. 881, 882. Calhoun's speech is not given in the Annals, but 
is quoted as above by Kennedy of North Carolina, who was very far 
from sympathizing with Calhoun's view of the matter. 

13 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, 
p. 1262. 






1 84 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

cents per square yard. In opposition to this motion, he spoke 
as follows on April 4, 1816: 14 

The debate heretofore on this subject has been on the degree 
of protection which ought to be afforded to our cotton and 
woollen manufactures; all professing to be friendly to those in- 
fant establishments, and to be willing to extend to them adequate 
encouragement. The present motion assumes a new aspect. It 
is introduced professedly on the ground that manufactures ought 
not to receive any encouragement, and will, in its operation, leave 
our cotton establishments exposed to the competition of the 
cotton goods of the E. Indies, which, it is acknowledged on all 
sides, they are not capable of meeting with success, without the 
proviso proposed to be stricken out by the motion now under 
discussion. Until the debate assumed this new form, he had 
determined to be silent; participating, as he largely did, in that 
general anxiety which is felt, after so long and laborious a ses- 
sion, to return to the bosom of our families. ... He was no 
manufacturer; he was not from that portion of our country sup- 
posed to be peculiarly interested. Coming, as he did, from the 
South, having, in common with his immediate constituents, no 
interest but in the cultivation of the soil, in selling its products 
high, and buying cheap the wants and conveniences of life, no 
motive could be attributed to him but such as were disinterested. 

He had asserted that the subject before them was connected 
with the security of the country. [After arguing that the proper 
development of agriculture, commerce and manufactures was 
necessary to the production of wealth and referring to the man- 
ner in which our currency and finance had broken down in the 
war.] . . . But what, he asked, is more necessary to the defence 
of a country than its currency and finance? Circumstanced as 
our country is, can these stand the shock of war? Behold the 
effect of the late war on them! When our manufactures are 
grown to a certain perfection, as they soon will under the fos- 
tering care of Government, we will no longer experience these 

"Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, 
pp. 1329-36. Calhoun said in his speech on the Force Bill on February 
15 and 16, 1833, that this tariff speech was entirely impromptu and had been 
made upon the request of Ingham, who thought the House was falling 
into confusion. Calhoun had replied : " I was at a loss what to say, that 
I had been busily engaged on the currency . . . which . . . had been 
placed particularly under my charge," but upon Ingham's repeating his 
request had made the speech. " Works," II, pp. 208, 209 : see also " Corre- 
spondence," p. 305. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 185 

evils. To give perfection to this state of things, it will be neces- 
sary to add, as soon as possible, a system of internal improve- 
ments, and at least such an extension of our navy as will prevent 
the cutting off of our coasting trade. To this distressing state 
of things, there were two remedies and only two : ... he meant 
the Navy and domestic manufactures. By the former, we could 
open the way to our markets ; by the latter, we bring them from 
beyond the ocean and naturalize them. . . . Besides, we have 
already surmounted the greatest difficulty that has ever been 
found in undertakings of this kind. The cotton and woollen 
manufactures are not to be introduced — they are already intro- 
duced to a great extent; freeing us entirely from the hazards 
and, in a great measure, the sacrifices experienced in giving the 
capital of the country a new direction. The restrictive meas- 
ures and the war, though not intended for the purpose, have, by 
the necessary operation of things, turned a large amount of 
capital to this new branch of industry. He had often heard it 
said, both in and out of Congress, that this effect alone would 
indemnify the country for all of its losses. So high was this 
tone of feeling, when the want of these establishments were 
[sic] practically felt, that he remembered during the war, when 
some question was agitated respecting the introduction of foreign 
goods, that many then opposed it on the ground of injuring our 
manufactures. He then said that war alone furnished sufficient 
stimulus, and perhaps too much, as it would make their growth 
unnaturally rapid ; but that on the return of peace, it would then 
be time to show our affection for them. He at that time did 
not expect an apathy and aversion to the extent which is now 
seen. But it will no doubt be said, if they are so far estab- 
lished and if the situation of the country is so favorable to their 
growth, where is the necessity for protection? It is to put them 
beyond the reach of contingency. . . . Afford to ingenuity and 
industry immediate and ample protection, and they will not fail 
to give a preference to this free and happy country. ... It has 
been further asserted that manufactures are the fruitful cause 
of pauperism, and England has been referred to as furnishing 
evidence of its truth. For his part, he could perceive no such 
tendency in them, but the exact contrary, as they furnished 
new stimulus and means of subsistence to the working classes of 
the community. [The causes of the troubles referred to in 
England were the poor laws, those regulating the price of labor, 



1 86 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

and the heavy taxes.] ... It [the system of manufactures] pro- 
duced an interest strictly American, as much so as agriculture; 
in which it had the decided advantage of commerce or naviga- 
tion. The country will from this derive much advantage. 
Again, it is calculated to bind together more closely our widely- 
spread Republic. It will greatly increase our mutual depend- 
ence and intercourse ; and will, as a necessary consequence, ex- 
cite an increased attention to internal improvement — a subject 
every way so intimately connected with the ultimate attainment 
of national strength, and the perfection of our political institu- 
tions. He regarded the fact that it would make the parts adhere 
more closely; that it would form a new and most powerful 
cement [as] far outweighing any political objections that might 
be urged against the system. In his opinion, the liberty and the 
union of the country were inseparably united. That as the de- 
struction of the latter would most certainly involve the former, 
so its maintenance would with equal certainty preserve it. . . . 
The basis of our Republic is too broad and its structure too strong 
to be shaken by them [the causes which have destroyed the lib- 
erty of other States]. Its extension and organization will be 
found to afford effectual security against their operation ; but let 
it be deeply impressed on the heart of this House and country, 
that while they guarded against the old, they exposed us to a new 
and terrible danger — disunion. This single word comprehended 
almost the sum of our political dangers ; and against it we ought 
to be perpetually guarded. 

Randolph's motion did not come to a vote, as he subse- 
quently withdrew it. 

It is worthy of record, as showing how closely the methods 
of different times often resemble one another that, when the 
tariff bill was about to be put on final passage, Calhoun thought 
it necessary to say that " he wished merely to reply to the in- 
sinuation of a mysterious connexion between this bill and that 
to establish the bank. He denied any improper or unfair un- 
derstanding, and could challenge the House to support the 
charge. In fact, Mr. Calhoun said, the most zealous 
friends of the bank were generally unfriendly to this tariff; 
and the warmest friends of either could not be found on the 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 187 

same side." 15 The bill then passed by a vote of 88 to 54. 

Nor should it be left unnoted that the early part 1G of his 
chief speech on the tariff bill shows that Calhoun already had 
a fairly clear idea of the interest of the South, so often on his 
lips at a later date, as an exclusively agricultural region, 
against the tariff. But the charge often made that he was the 
author of the Tariff of 1816 is simply absurd. He was not 
even on the committee that drew it, and, so far as appears, 
had no hand in its formation except by virtue of his vote and 
of a few arguments on the floor. At the same time, it is of 
course likely that, as a leading member, he was to some extent 
consulted, and we are told 17 that the great manufacturer, 
Lowell, whose views on the tariff were much more moderate 
than those of the Rhode Island manufacturers, '"' finally 
brought Mr. Lowndes and Mr. Calhoun to support the mini- 
mum of 6*4 cents a yard, which was carried." 

In his speeches upon this subject Calhoun used not a few 
of the terms of the protectionists of a later date, such as " our 
infant industries " and " fostering care," while the answering 
phrases of the free traders by no means failed to issue from 
Randolph's caustic tongue, who denounced 18 the measure as 
one to support " a mushroom interest," " a scheme of public 
robbery," and the " levying an immense tax on one portion of 
the country to put money into the pockets of another." 

The Tariff of 18 16 became a law by the President's signa- 
ture on April 27, and was on the whole a most moderate meas- 
ure. The only rather ultra feature it contained was what is 
known as the minimum, under which artificial grades were 
established and low-priced goods in some cases assumed to 
have cost a much larger figure. Thus, all cotton cloths cost- 
ing less than 25 cents per yard were to be valued for tariff 
purposes as if they had cost that sum and were then charged 

15 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, 
p. 1361. 

16 Quoted shortly ante. See also precisely the same idea in his speech 
of April 6, 1814, quoted at p. 170, ante. 

17 Taussig's "Tariff History," p. 34, citing Appleton's "Introduction to 
the Power Loom," etc., p. 13. 

18 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, 
pp. 1328, 1329. 



/ 



1 88 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

an ad valorem duty of 25 per cent, on that price. They thus 
actually paid far more than the nominal rate of 25 per cent. 
But, on the other hand, the law of 18 16 entirely abolished the 
" double duties," which had been maintained during the war. 
On the whole, and measured by subsequent standards, the rates 
were certainly in general low, and the occasional higher ones 
were to be reduced in a few years. So moderate was it in- 
deed in general that a leading author upon the subject of our 
tariff history writes : 

The act of 18 16, which is generally said to mark the begin- 
ning of a distinctly protective policy in this country, belongs 
rather to the earlier series of acts, beginning with that of 1789, 
than to the group of acts of 1824, 1828, and 1832. Its highest 
permanent rate of duty was 20 per cent. 19 

One other point must be emphasized. The impression seems 
to have got abroad that the bill was forced upon New England 
by the South, but this is a complete error. Prof. McMaster 
writes 20 that " the vote, both Yea and Nay, was well dis- 
tributed. But the strongest opposition came from New Eng- 
land, and the warmest support from the South," and the con- 
clusion is possibly correct, if the latter sentence has reference 
exclusively to the debates. In regard to the actual vote by 
which the measure was passed, however, the fact was alto- 
gether different. It received by far the greatest number of 
votes from the Middle States and the three new ones of Ohio, 
Kentucky and Tennessee, while New England was in its favor 
by a good majority and the Southern States very largely 
against it. The vote in the first-mentioned section (including 
the three new States named) was 55 Ayes and 8 Nays, in New 
England 17 Ayes to 10 Nays, and in the South 16 Ayes to 36 
Nays. It is quite true that Webster opposed the bill, and 
that Calhoun and Lowndes were its leading advocates during 

1 9 F. W. Taussig's " Tariff History," pp. 30. 68. 

""History," Vol. IV, p. 339. See also Schouler's "United States," 
Vol. II, p. 450, where much the same general conclusion seems to be 
reached. Calhoun himself, doubtless remembering in the main his own 
course upon the bill, vastly overestimated in later years the support 
given by the South so far as votes were concerned. See his speech 
on the Force Bill on February 15 and 16, 1833, in "Works," Vol. II, 
pp. 306, 207, 212. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 189 

the debate; but when the vote was taken less than half of the 
delegation even from South Carolina (Calhoun, Lowndes, 
Mayrant, Woodward) voted Aye, while three (Huger, Moore 
and Taylor), voted Nay and two (Chappell and Middleton) 
did not vote at all. 

During Calhoun's earliest years as a public man and even 
before he was elected to the State Legislature, there had been 
some home-market and pro-tariff sentiment in South Carolina. 
Thus, at the legislative session held in June, 1808 (the one 
preceding his service), the House "considered and agreed to 
a resolution from the Senate, to appear next session in manu- 
factures of the United States." 21 In the fall of that same 
year, too, was laid the cornerstone of the South Carolina 
Homespun Factory Company on the Ashley River, and an 
address delivered by Wm. Loughton Smith, in which he said, 
" No reflecting citizen can any longer question the policy of 
affording every encouragement to Domestick Manufactures. 
The hostile restrictions, which have from time to time en- 
thralled our external trade, must have long ago pointed out 
the absolute necessity of enlarging the sphere of internal com- 
merce." 22 

Again, at the legislative session of November-December, 
1808, in which Calhoun sat as a member, the same Homespun 
Factory presented a petition " for an union with the State and 
for incorporation," which was favorably reported on and 
passed by both Senate and House. 23 At about this same time, 
too, the Constitutional Court, at the November term, 1808, 
upon the unanimous request of the bar altered " the rule, 
which required the members to appear in court with black 
coats and gowns, so far as to permit any other color to be 
worn, provided it should be of the growth and manufacture of 
the United States. The members of the bar then resolved 

21 The Charleston " Courier " of July 6, 1808. 

22 Ibid., October 31, 1808. 

23 The Charleston "Courier" for December 7, 13, 17, 21, 1808. The 
Homespun Company was established in 1808 for manufacturing yarn-; 
and cloths and a spacious brick building erected, machinery purchased 
and machinists and workmen brought from the North and from England, 
but in three years it failed, making a loss of four-fifths of the capital. 
De Bow's "Commercial Review," Vol. VITI (Jan., 1850), p. 24. 



\y 



/ 



i 9 o LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

to appear for the future in full suits of domestic manufacture 
and recommended dark grey as the color to be worn. 24 

There is of course no proof in these few details of any 
strong sentiment in favor of a protective tariff in the sense 
of our history; but they certainly show the existence of a line 
of thought tending to favor home productions and which may 
fairly be supposed to have had its part in leading some South 
Carolinians towards the doctrine of governmental protection. 
At a later date, too, when the Tariff of 1816 was in process 
of enactment, though the measure was disapproved by the 
strongly Federalist Charleston Courier, yet the paper's lan- 
guage recognizes clearly the wide-spread sentiment in favor 
of protection and appears to admit that this feeling existed in 
South Carolina. The issue of April 5, 1816, reproduces an 
article from the Georgetown Gazette of March 27, in which 
the following language is used : 

This Tariff [the then pending Act of 1816], high and exor- 
bitant as it is, will to all appearance pass, for the watchword of 
the day, without any distinction of party, seems to be protec- 
tion to Manufactures. This to a certain point may be correct, 
but there is surely a medium in everything. The immediate 
effect of these high duties must be peculiarly felt by the Southern 
States; inasmuch as they are only consumers, whilst the Middle 
and Eastern States are manufacturers as well as consumers. . . . 
Nor is this all, for there is but too much reason to fear that it will 
excite countervailing duties in foreign Nations, not upon manu- 
factures, but upon our raw materials, and that we shall have our 
rice, cotton and other exports so taxed abroad, as to be virtually 
excluded from what are now their best markets. 

Again on April 19, 1S16, the Courier prints a letter from 
Washington to its editor, dated April 12, in which the writer 
expresses his fear " that the mania for granting protection, as 
it is called, or as [it] might more properly be termed, for giv- 
ing bounties to Domestic Manufactures, which carried it 
through this [the House] will likewise carry it in that branch 
of the legislature." 

We have in these extracts not only another early assertion 

2* Ibid., December 3, 1808. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 191 

of the peculiar position of the South in regard to the tariff, 
such as they so often maintained in later days, but a tolerably 
clear recognition that, though the writers feared the results 
of protection upon the interests of their section, yet that there 
was a current in that direction and no little sentiment in favor 
of protection and of the interests of the home-market. And 
the home-market meant, too, the American market and not 
that of South Carolina alone. Without the existence of this 
sentiment, it is very unlikely, moreover, that two such leading 
and so popular men as Calhoun and Lowndes would be found 
to be active supporters of the Tariff of 1816. 

The measure passed at this First Session of the Fourteenth 
Congress, however, which more especially emanated from Cal- 
houn, was that which resulted in the creation of the Second 
Bank of the United States. This step was certainly not in 
accord with the inherited beliefs of the Republicans, but was 
dragged from them by hard necessity. Specie payments were 
still suspended south of New England, and our whole financial 
system was near the point of collapse. 

The consequent difficulties of administration were most 
serious. The rate of discount varied materially in different 
parts of the country, being at its worst near Washington, but 
the government had been driven by necessity to collect its 
dues in this depreciated paper and soon fell to accepting the 
currency of the place of payment. It was thus robbed of its 
income at the very fountain-head ; and a curious result, which 
further contributed to dry up the sources of revenue, was that 
the import trade of the country was turned into the waters of 
Chesapeake Bay, where the depression was at about its worst. 
The importer there paid tariff charges to the Government in 
the cheapest money and could then ship his goods where he 
pleased. 

In his Message at the opening of the session Madison, who 
had undoubtedly been opposed to a national bank, for the first 
time suggested the creation of one. He was under the com- 
pelling influence of a condition before which his theories were 
abandoned. Administration was well-nigh impossible in the 
then state of financial affairs. Writing of the difficulties he 







i 9 2 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

met with and of the imperative need of a uniform national 
currency, he went on that, until the precious metals could again 
be introduced, " it devolves on the wisdom of Congress to 
provide a substitute, which shall equally engage the confidence, 
and accommodate the wants of the citizens throughout the 
Union. If the operations of the State banks cannot produce 
this result, the probable operation of a National Bank will 
merit consideration." 

It has already been said that a special committee on Uni- 
form National Currency was created and that Calhoun, owing 
to his prominence upon the subject at the prior session, was 
selected by Speaker Clay as Chairman. Dallas's annual re- 
port had again recommended a national bank, and he now out- 
lined the plan of one in reply to a letter from Calhoun asking 
his views. On January 8, 1816, Calhoun reported the bill for 
a bank, based upon Dallas's suggestions. Many of the sub- 
jects of contention at the prior session had been entirely re- 
moved by peace, and the purpose of Dallas and every one else 
at this time was to establish a specie-paying institution. The 
factional question, too, of whether the institution should be 
founded on war stock alone, or on earlier issues as well, was 
now removed. The plan reported provided for a capital of 
$35,000,000, of which the United States were to subscribe to 
one-fifth and the public to four-fifths. Payment was to be 
made three-fourths in funded debt and one-fourth in specie. 
The bank was to be at Philadelphia, was to have branches, 
and the Government was to appoint five of the twenty-five 
directors. Its notes were to be received for all dues of the 
Government; it was to transfer money for the Government 
without charge, and it was to pay a bonus of $1,500,000. On 
February 25, Calhoun spoke to the bill as follows: 25 

25 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress First Session. 1815-16, 
pp. 1060-1066. Calhoun writes ("Autobiography," p. 23) that his speech 
upon this occasion was "one of the most elaborate and powerful he 
ever delivered. Unfortunately, it is lost. That published at the time 
is a meagre sketch of what took three hours in the delivery, and such 
as it is, never passed under his review and correction." He said in the 
Senate on September 19, 1837, on the bill for the issue of Treasury 
notes ("Works," Vol. Ill, pp. 67, 68: and see also later speech in ibid., 
p. 172), "In supporting the bank of 1816, I openly declared that, as a 
question de novo, I would be decidedly against the bank, and would be 









THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 193 

He did not propose to comprehend in this discussion the power 
of Congress to grant bank charters, nor the question whether the 
general tendency of banks was favorable or unfavorable to the 
liberty and prosperity of the country. ... To discuss these 
questions he conceived, would be a useless consumption of time. 
The constitutional question had been already so freely and fre- 
quently discussed that all had made up their mind on it. . . . 
The state of our circulating medium was, he said, opposed to the 
principles of our Federal Constitution. The power was given to 
Congress by that instrument in express terms to regulate the cur- 
rency of the United States. . . . No one, he said, who referred 
to the Constitution, could doubt that the money of the United 
States was intended to be placed entirely under the control of 
Congress. The only object the framers of the Constitution 
could have in view in giving to Congress the " power to coin 
money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin " must 
have been to give a steadiness and fixed value to the currency of 
the United States. ... He presumed one of the first rules of 
such a bank would be to take the notes of no bank which did not 
pay in gold or silver. . . . This would produce a powerful effect 
all over the Union. 

During the debate upon the bill, Calhoun always took the 
lead in its favor, while the Federalists and the strict construc- 
tionists headed by John Randolph offered a persistent opposi- 
tion. Webster was strongly against the measure, " but many 
members of his party from the middle and southern states, 
where the evils of the financial situation appealed even to the 
dullest, refused to follow him, and a keen and galling exchange 
of criminations and recriminations between these two wings 
closed the final debate in the House." 26 On March 6, Cal- 
houn had said in debate that " he almost despaired of the pas- 
sage of the bill, after some of the indications which he had 

the last to give it my support. T also stated that, in supporting the 
hank then, I yielded to the necessity of the case, growing out of the 
existing and long established connection between the Government and 
tht hanking system. I took the ground even at that early period, that 
so long as the connection existed — so long as the Government received 
and paid away bank notes as money, they were bound to regulate their 
value, and had no alternative hut the establishment of a national hank." 
For the other proceedings on the hank bill in 1816, see the Annals, ut 
supra, pp. 404-505, 1152, 1210. See also Vol. II, pp. 51, 52. 
26 Catterall's *" Second Bank," p. 20. 



194 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

witnessed, and he began to doubt whether any bill would pass 
at all on the subject. For himself, Mr. Calhoun said, his an- 
xiety for the measure was not extreme; but as long as there 
was a lingering hope of its success, he should omit no effort 
to make it an efficient remedy for the evils of the present cur- 
rency. * ' 

On March 14, it is plain to see, the House was tired of the 
subject, and the Annals record that during the latter part of the 
discussion on that day question was loudly called for. At 
length, at a late hour, relief came to wearied members, and the 
bill was passed by 80 to 71. On April 5, certain amendments 
of no great moment made by the Senate were concurred in 
by the House, and then the measure became a law by the 
President's signature on April 10, 18 16. The famous Second 
Bank of the United States was shortly after formed under this 
law, and entered upon its tragic history. 

Calhoun was in reality the author of the institution, and 
what he said eighteen years later was strictly true. " I might 
say with truth," so he spoke in the Senate on January 13, 1834, 
" that the bank owes as much to me as to any other individual 
in the country ; and I might even add that, had it not been for 
my efforts, it would not have been chartered." 28 

The reader will have observed that in his opening speech 
upon presenting the bill Calhoun had expressed the opinion 
that one of the proposed institution's first rules would be not 
to accept the notes of any bank but such as paid specie. One 
of the great purposes in view was to bring the country back to 
a gold and silver basis, and on April 6, 1816, in pursuance 
of this purpose, Calhoun reported from his Committee on 
National Currency a bill to exclude from reception the notes of 
banks not paying specie, and thus lead to resumption. Various 
votes on the bill were very close, and Calhoun tried by several 
changes to make it more palatable to members ; but the measure 

27 Annals, as above, p. 1152. 

28 Speech on Removal of Deposits, Congressional Debates, Vol. X. 
Part I, 18.33-34. P- 213, or " Works," Vol. IT, p. 325. My account of 
the bank struggle here is based in the main on the same authorities as 
have already been mentioned on p. 169, ante, with the addition of Cal- 
houn's Senate speech of October 3, 1837, printed in " Works," Vol, III, pp. 
125-129, and the " Autobiography," pp. 16-18, 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 195 

was finally defeated on April 25 by 59 Yeas to 60 Nays. 

The next day Webster, who had voted in favor of Calhoun's 
bill, introduced a provision very similar in general effect, in 
the shape of a joint resolution, which was passed on that same 
day by 71 to 34, Calhoun voting with the majority. This reso- 
lution was later agreed to in the Senate, and was approved by 
the President on April 30. It called upon the Secretary of the 
Treasury to adopt such measures as he might deem necessary 
to cause all taxes, debts, &c. due the United States, to be paid 
in legal currency, U. S. or Treasury Notes, or notes of the 
Bank of the United States, " or in notes of banks, which are 
payable and paid on demand in the said legal currency of the 
United States." February 20, 181 7, was fixed by another 
section as the date after which no such taxes, debts, &c. " ought 
to be collected or received otherwise " than in the currencies 
specified. 29 

During the debates upon this measure, Calhoun had urged 
the fixing of an early date for resumption, and said he did not 
believe that the banks were sincere in their intention to resume, 
but that they could do so and ought to be made to. It should 
be noted also that his then fondness for the easy device of 
Treasury notes, as shown in his proposed substitute at the 
prior session for the Government plan of a national bank, 
came out here in his motion to amend by a proviso for the 
issuance of fifteen millions of Treasury notes. He thought 
this would be a great relief to the community under the pres- 
sure of resumption. 30 

That the bank had a large part in bringing about a return to 
specie payments is beyond question, but the history of the 
institution during its existence of twenty years, was a very 
chequered one and need not be gone into here, where the only 
purpose is to show Calhoun's relation to its origin. It will 
appear in later papers what was his opinion of it in more mature 
years. 

One point in the history of the institution, however, had 

29 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, 

PP- 1345, 1356, 1437, 1440-51. 1919. 1020 

30 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-10, 

pp. 1389, 1390. 1415. 1416. 



196 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

better be treated now, as it bears directly on Calhoun's views at 
this early period. The bank was charged soon after going 
into business with allowing owners to make payment for their 
stock, not in specie which the charter specifically required for 
a portion of the second payment on the capital but by dint of 
loans made by the bank itself upon the part-paid stock. At 
the next session of Congress, Forsyth moved for a committee 
to inquire into this charge, but Calhoun was opposed to the 
motion and said that " it was distinctly understood at the last 
session that the second specie payment would necessarily be 
made by accommodations from the bank." Such an " under- 
standing," against the very words of a statute, would seem to 
point a very facile method of avoiding most laws, but we are 
told by the leading authority 31 upon the bank's history that 
" every bank chartered in that day began operations in pre- 
cisely the same way," and this statement seems to be borne out, 
not only by Calhoun's already-quoted speech, but by at least 
three contemporary and authoritative witnesses. 32 

It cannot be determined by general rule how much or how 
little the loose customs of business may rightfully, or even 
must, at times override the provisions of law, but we can at 
least safely accept the view of the bank's historian on this mat- 
ter that the directors were " culpable in so far as they gave 
facilities for evading the requirements of the law." Calhoun 
continued to defend the bank and later in the debate " repeated 
his approbation of the regulation, from the impartiality it pro- 
duced in the accommodations, and the unhappy effect a draft 
of three millions on the money market, would at this time have 
produced in the relation between paper and specie, which draft 
was obviated by the regulation. ... He considered the notes 
of the bank the same as specie, because they were convertible 
into gold and silver at pleasure." 33 

Forsyth's resolution was carried by 89 to 68, but was re- 

3i " The Second Bank of the United States," by Ralph C. H. Catterall, 
p. 41. 

32 Mason in debate, in Annals of Congress. 14th Congress, First Ses- 
sion, 1815-16. p. 2.16, quoted by Prof. Catterall, p. 41 : Ingham in debate, 
ibid., Second Session, 1816-17, "p. 434. Director of the Bank Lloyd's letter 
to Calhoun printed at ibid., p. 458. 

33 Ibid., pp. 431-36. 




THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 197 

ferred to Calhoun's Committee on National Currency, and he 
reported against it on January 10, 181 7. The adverse report 
was chiefly based on a letter from James Lloyd, a director of 
the bank who chanced to be in Washington at the time and 
was called upon for information by the committee. Lloyd 
wrote in reply that the notes on which the loans were made 
were " payable at maturity in specie, or bills of the Bank of 
the United States." Probably, this attempted explanation did 
not seem to Forsyth to clear up the matter, and on January 14 
he introduced a joint resolution in regard to it, but the subject 
was not reached, and near the end of the session he himself 
had it indefinitely postponed. 34 

One other measure became a law at the first session of the 
Fourteenth Congress, which had a fateful effect on many an 
apparently promising career, and which may serve to show 
once more to the philosophical reader that the nature of man 
was not at that day essentially different from what it is in our 
own time. Members of Congress were then still paid at the 
rate of six dollars a day, as they had been since 1789, but 
they became convinced that under the changed circumstances 
prevailing in 18 16 this was not enough. The conclusion thus 
arrived at was probably quite correct, but the hasty method in 
which a material change was made is certainly open to grave 
criticism. 

On March 4, 1816, R. M. Johnson of Kentucky introduced 
the subject and thought members should be paid the sum of 
$1500 per session, with a provision to reduce the pay of 
absent members in proportion to their absence. This change 
from a per diem sum would, he argued, tend to " the despatch 
of public business," and would avoid the needless prolongation 
of the sittings of Congress. A committee upon the subject 
was at once appointed at his suggestion, and in two days 
(March 6) it reported a bill to change the method of pay and 
establish the new system and the new rate advocated by John- 
son. The next day (the 7th) the bill was debated and ordered 
to third reading " by a large majority " ; and then on the 8th, 

3 * Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816-17, 
PP- 43i, 454-59, 476, 1053. 



i 9 8 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

after a speech in its favor by Calhoun, it was finally passed 
by a vote of 80 to 71, and sent to the Senate. The upper house 
did not act with quite such unseemly haste as the lower, but 
passed the measure on March 14th, and it received the Presi- 
dent's signature on the 19th. Under its terms, the law was 
to go into effect at once and to apply to the Congress which 
had passed it. Here was surely an early case of " railroad- 
ing " a bill through Congress. Calhoun voted for the measure, 
and in his speech upon it said as follows : 

So far as this bill proposed to increase the compensation to 
members, he was in favor of it, because he thought the present 
pay very inadequate to the dignity of the station, and far short 
of the time, labor and sacrifice required. He thought $1500 
would be found not sufficient, and would prefer, on the ground 
of a due compensation as well as a due regard to principle, $2500. 
... A majority of the members come from three hundred to 
eight hundred miles. In serving the country they are not only 
obliged to be absent a great part of the year from their families ; 
but what is almost equally distressing, to be absent a great dis- 
tance. We serve at the expense of the best sympathies of our 
nature. . . . This state of things ought to be counteracted as far as 
possible; the condition of a Member ought to be made more de- 
sirable than at present ; he ought at least to be able to have his 
family about him, which he cannot, at the present pay, without 
ruin, unless he be a man of property. 35 

However sound these views may perhaps have been, they 
did not appeal to the public, and there was a furious outburst 
throughout the whole country against all who had advocated 
the law. The objections were to no little extent based on the 
change from daily wages to a salary, which was looked upon 
as unrepublican. Some members did not even try to be re- 
elected, and of those who did, numbers were left at home. 

" Georgia," so a well-known historian writes, " sent back but 
one of the old members, South Carolina but three out of nine, 
Maryland but four out of nine and Pennsylvania thirteen out 
of twenty-three. From Ohio, from Delaware, from Vermont, 

85 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, 
pp. 1183-85. For the proceedings on the bill see ibid., pp. 303, 1127-34, 
1 150, 1158-77, 1 188, 1801. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 199 

not one was returned. Connecticut re-elected two out of 
seven." 36 

Down to this time, Calhoun had been a very popular man in 
his district, so much so that not only had two prior Members 
of Congress withdrawn so as to leave him a free field, but we 
are told by Jenkins 3T that " he was returned without opposi- 
tion in the fall of 18 12 and again in 18 14, to the Thirteenth and 
Fourteenth Congress." He was of course often ridiculed by 
the opposition, and the Charleston Courier seems to have been 
particularly fond of printing such criticisms of him, coupled 
with sadly erroneous prophecies as to his future. Thus, on 
January 17, 181 2, it gave some " Scraps of Debate in Con- 
gress " from the Baltimore Federal Republican, in which 
were contained a few sentences from a speech of Calhoun on 
the expenses of the war, in order to ridicule a figure of speech 
he had used as to " frightening the eye." Certain remarks he 
made, too, in regard to his recollections of the whisky tax were 
ridiculed upon the ground that he was almost an infant at the 
time, and this then served to lead up to the forecast " there 
is no great prospect of his ever arriving at maturity as a 
statesman." 

But in a very few years, at least his leading position was 
fully recognized. On February 10, 1816, the Courier repro- 
duced from the Georgetown Federal Republican of February 
1st a portion of his speech on the revenue bill and then adds: 
" We consider it of deep import, as indicating the secret pur- 
poses, or [at] least the expectations of the Cabinet and its 
party." In this speech, Calhoun is quoted as referring to 
the danger of war with Great Britain, and then saying: ' We 
have now our Jackson to oppose to her Wellington!!!' 
The article goes on that he was first in favor of the navy and 

a« McMaster's "United States," Vol. IV, p. 362. 

37 " Life of Calhoun," p. 64. 

38 Calhoun's actual words were: "If Britain has her Wellington, we 
have our Jacksons, Browns, and ScottS. If she has her naval heroes, 
we have them not less renowned, for they have snatched the laurel from 
her brows." Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, lit I Session, 
1815-16, p. 833. His speech on the Repeal of the Direcl Tax Bill on 
January 31, 1816, as printed in "Works," Vol. Ill, 14ft makes 1 ii 
"but I believe that steam frigates ought at least to constitute a part of 
the means" of our naval defence. 



200 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

steam-vessels and wanted an army of 10,000 men and military 
roads. "In short he was for suborning everything to the 
purposes of war and military parade. Our manufactures, he 
said, deserved to be encouraged, but still in a military view." 

The almost universal outburst of passion consequent upon 
the passage of the compensation Bill, shook Calhoun's popu- 
larity for a time. When he reached home after the adjourn- 
ment in April, he writes 30 that he " found, for the first time, 
the tide of popular favor against him. So strong was the 
current, that his two predecessors, who had retired in his 
favor, General Butler and Colonel Calhoun, the latter a near 
relative, were both violently opposed to him, and the former 
came out as a candidate against him. They were both men 
of great influence." Calhoun was advised, we are told by 
the same authority, to appeal to the kind feelings of his con- 
stituents and apologize for his vote, but this he absolutely 
declined to do. The election for the next Congress was to be 
held in the autumn so that the course he followed was vital 
to his future. Having declined the ill advice given him, he 
said that all he wanted was the opportunity to address his con- 
stituents upon the subject. 

Days were accordingly appointed for that purpose in Abbe- 
ville and Edgefield, which composed his Congressional district, 
and Calhoun spoke at the court-houses. He writes in his 
" Autobiography " that he confined himself entirely to the 
merits of the question, without a hint of apology or regret, and 
the result in October was that he was "triumphantly re- 
elected." 40 There were three other candidates in the field, 
and it may well be that this aided him, but none the less the 
boldness of his course was certainly most creditable. The out- 
burst against him seems to have been merely temporary and 

30 " Autobiography" p. 23. 

*oP. 23. The Charleston "Courier" of October 24, 1816, prints an 
item from the Augusta " Chronicle " of the 18th in the following words : 
" We learn by a gentleman from South Carolina, who reached this place 
last evening, that Mr. Calhoun has been re-elected to Congress from that 
State by a large majority." The " Courier " of September 16 gives the 
names of the candidates in Calhoun's district as being John C. Calhoun, 
Gen. Wm. Butler, Dr. E. S. Davis, and Edmund Bacon. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 201 

in 1820, while Secretary of State, he told John Quincy 
Adams 41 that he was "the most popular man in his dis- 
trict." 

On the second day of the next session a bill was introduced 
to repeal this law, so hastily rushed through Congress. It 
will be observed that this was after the elections for the 
Fifteenth Congress, when not only the successful members, 
but those who had been defeated, knew their fates and that 
many of their voices would not be heard at the session to meet 
after the one then sitting. Calhoun spoke and maintained 
that his opinion remained unaltered in favor of an annual, 
rather than a per diem, sum, but added that he was willing to 
vote for the latter, if it was fixed at an adequate rate, — say 
$8 or $9 a day. He was willing to do this on the ground 
that such a method of payment had a better chance of being 
permanent, because the members of the next Congress would 
not be free agents, and had, he said, most of them already 
committed themselves during the canvass. He maintained, 
too, that members were not obliged to follow the popular 
clamor and were not subject to instruction, which had existed 
in none of the governments of antiquity and was an English 
corruption. Of course, at the same time he did not contend, he 
said during the debate in reply to a critic, that the voice of the 
people was to be disregarded; the permanent feelings of the 
community will impress itself on us; what he maintained was 
that instructions were not obligatory. 42 

The bill was passed by a vote of 138 to 27, Calhoun voting 
Nay. It also passed the Senate, and then received the signa- 
ture of the President on February 6, 181 7. By its terms the 
Act making the increase was in turn repealed, with a proviso 
that the new law should not revive any act repealed or sus- 
pended by the Act of the prior session. Thus, the whole sub- 
ject was left open for future regulation. In the next Congress, 
when Calhoun was not a member, a new law 43 was passed 

41 Adams's " Memoirs," Vol. V, p. 10. 

42 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816-17, 
pp. 232, 243, 574-S2, 653, 654, 714; ibid., "Appendix," 1278. 

43 Peters's " U. S. Statutes at Large," Vol. Ill, pp. 404, 405. 



202 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

upon the subject, fixing the pay of senators and representa- 
tives at eight dollars a day with an allowance for mileage of 
eight dollars for every twenty miles. 

The rate thus fixed was at least one-third larger than had 
been allowed by the old law and as high as the sum which 
Calhoun had expressed himself as ready to vote for, and this 
result seems to have been accepted by the public with little 
demur. The total received by members under the new law 
must have averaged less than it would have been under the 
fifteen hundred dollars a session law of 1816, unless the large 
allowance for mileage would have served to bring it up to as 
large a sum ; but Calhoun had sat in the House during two very 
long sessions, and at one of these the opposite would have 
been the case. The first session of the Twelfth Congress 
lasted 244 days and the third session of the Thirteenth Con- 
gress 166 days; so that, at $8 per diem, members would have 
drawn $1952 and $1328 respectively, mileage excluded. 

This is not the only instance in the history of the American 
people in which they have burst out into a volcanic tempest 
of passion far greater than the circumstances call for, and then 
have later accepted with complete docility a final result not 
so greatly different from that at which they had stormed and 
railed shortly before. Many a public man of promise has 
been forever eclipsed by these popular tempests, which in our 
day are fanned and even made by a reckless press, regardless 
of the truth, if only a sensation can be created and large edi- 
tions be in demand, while in early days the railing stump 
orator was probably a leading factor. In the instance here 
concerned, an increase of salary was doubtless called for by 
the change of circumstances in the course of twenty-seven 
years, and the only sound subject of criticism seems to have 
been the improper and foolish haste with which the measure 
had been hurried through Congress. 

There remains one other leading subject upon which Cal- 
houn spoke at this the last session in which he ever sat in the 
House of Representatives. There were also points of lesser 
moment, which must be touched upon, but the matter now 
referred to was evidently in his opinion of prime importance, 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 203 

and his already-quoted speeches have in several instances re- 
ferred to it. 

During the war the greatest difficulty had been found in 
transporting men and material from one part of the country 
to another over the most terrible of roads, — and often where 
there were none, — and the expense had of course been a very 
heavy burden. Ingersoll 44 writes: 

It was estimated that it cost a thousand dollars for every 
cannon conveyed to Sackett's Harbor. The flour for Harrison's 
army was said to cost a hundred dollars per barrel. The multi- 
plied incidental but inevitable charges of travel over wilderness 
regions without roads, required, among other things, thousands 
of pack horses, each of which could carry only half a barrel of 
provisions, and must be attended by trains of other horses with 
forage for those laden with provisions. The distances were 
hundreds of miles over trackless deserts. Few horses survived 
more than one trip; many sunk under one. Of four thousand 
pack-horses to supply Harrison's small army, but eight hundred 
were alive after the winter of 1812-13. Large quantities of 
flour were buried in mud and snow, from inability to carry it 
any farther, large quantities damaged when arrived at the place 
of destination. 

Those having charge of public affairs were of course deeply 
impressed with all this, and Madison's first message to the 
Fourteenth Congress, — the first session to come together after 
peace, — was in no little part colored by the trying experiences 
of the war. Many subjects were suggested to Congress as 
proper matters for legislation, and one portion of the Mes- 
sage read : 

Among the means of advancing the public interest, the occa- 
sion is a proper one for recalling the attention of Congress to 
the great importance of establishing throughout our country the 
roads and canals which can be executed under the national au- 
thority. . . . And it is a happy reflection, that any defect of con- 
stitutional authority, which may be encountered, can be supplied 
in a mode which the constitution itself has providently pointed 
out. 

""Second War" (1812-13), Vol. I, p. 283. 



204 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Nothing came of this suggestion at the time, and Calhoun 
himself opposed it as inopportune; but at the beginning of the 
next session the President again referred to the subject in 
his message: Thus he wrote to Congress: 

And I particularly invite, again, their attention to the expedi- 
ency of exercising their powers, and, where necessary, of resort- 
ing to the prescribed mode of enlarging them, in order to effectu- 
ate a comprehensive system of roads and canals, such as will 
have the effect of drawing more closely together every part of 
our country, by promoting intercourse and improvements, and by 
increasing the share of every part in the common stock of na- 
tional prosperity. 

In a few days, — on December 16, 1816, — Calhoun moved 
for a committee on the expediency of setting aside the bonus 
and the net annual proceeds received from the National Bank 
as a fund for internal improvement. He remarked that a 
like proposition had been made at the prior session, but was 
then opposed by him as inopportune. A committee, consist- 
ing of Calhoun, Sheffey, Creighton, Grosvenor, and Ingham 
was appointed, and from it Calhoun reported on December 23 
a bill providing that " the United States's share of the divi- 
dends of the National Bank, and the bonus for its charter, be 
and the same are hereby set apart and permanently pledged 
as a fund for constructing roads and canals; and that it be 
subject to such specific appropriations, in that respect, as Con- 
gress may hereafter make." 45 

The " Autobiography " tells us that, in introducing this bill, 
Calhoun supposed that he was acting in strict conformity to 
the President's recommendations. It will be observed that 
no specific appropriation was made for any particular purpose, 
and Calhoun's speech shows pretty plainly that he had inten- 
tionally so drawn the measure for the very purpose of steer- 
ing clear of the constitutional scruples of some members. In- 
deed, he emphasizes this point in the " Autobiography," and 
states that the bill did not " intend to affirm that Congress had 
any power, much less to fix the limits of its power, over the 

40 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816-17, 
pp. 296, 297, 361. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 205 

subject ; but to leave both, as well as the appropriations there- 
after to be made, to abide the decision of Congress, in con- 
formity with the President's views." 46 

This method of leading people on half-way in some meas- 
ure by virtue of a device to enable the advocate to maintain 
plausibly that nothing is really done has always been one of 
the ways in which the successful public man accomplishes 
numbers of his ends. The bold man of determined charac- 
ter knows the trap too well to fall into it, but easy-going mem- 
bers, who want to please every one and probably need in turn 
to secure votes for some pet progeny of their own, are often 
caught and wake up later to find it extremely difficult to op- 
pose a policy which has by that time grown greatly by what 
it has fed on, and yet which in their hearts they thoroughly 
disapprove. 

There can be little doubt, it seems to me, that such was 
Calhoun's purpose in the form he gave to this measure, but 
the general plan he had in mind and his speech upon the sub- 
ject were certainly in a high degree statesmanlike. Indeed, 
the subject was one to give fine scope to a mind inclined to 
deal with such subjects from the view-point of the very high- 
est statesmanship, for what can be a better ideal for a public 
man than to arrange affairs so that the entirely voluntary 
action of the millions shall have free scope to carry out their 
own plans and thus better themselves and their country? How 
much better simply to lay the opportunity before all the peo- 
ple than to be forever struggling for the passage of laws and 
still more laws, which are directed in the main to command 
the involuntary action of but a small number. 

Calhoun felt this strongly, and his speech will show how 
he appreciated the value to his country and his countrymen 
of the measure he advocated. The constitutional question 47 

*8 P. 21. 

47 The "Autobiography," (pp. 21, 22), has it that Calhoun's "impression, 
like that of most of the young men of the party at the time, was, that it 
[the constitutional nower] was comprehended under the money-power of 
the government. Experience and reflection soon taught him that this 
was an error — one, in all probability, originating with him, and others 
of his own age, in the precedent of the Cumberland Road, which mav 
be regarded as the first departure by the Republican partv from the 



206 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

does not seem to have carried much weight with him, unless 
so far as it was an obstruction to be cleared away from the 
minds of some hesitating members; and I cannot but think 
that this was largely typical of his viewpoint during all these 
early years of his congressional service. Once more upon 
this measure, we rind his mainspring of action to be the de- 
sire to do everything to advance the power of the country, 
and as one method of contributing to this end to furnish the 
means by which the aggregate of our people might have the 
opportunity to increase their wealth. Nor did the additional 
military power to be conferred upon us by any means remain 
forgotten by him. It will be found that a few years later, 
while Secretary of War, he returned to the same subject and 
in his well-known report developed at length his plan of a sys- 
tem of roads and canals. His speech upon the subject in the 
House was made on February 4, 1817, and seems to have 
been widely admired throughout the Union. It was long, but 
the following 48 quotation will give his main points. After 
referring to the importance of roads and canals to the devel- 
opment of national wealth, he continues : 

In fact, if we look into the nature of wealth, we will find that 
nothing can be more favorable to its growth than good roads 

and canals Let it not be said that internal improvements 

may be wholly left to the enterprise of the States and of indi- 
viduals. He knew, he said, that much might justly be expected 
to be done by them. . . . But many of the improvements con- 
templated, said Mr. Calhoun, are on too great a scale for the 
resources of the States or individuals; and many of such a na- 
ture, that the rival jealousy of the States, if left alone, might 
prevent. . . . But there are higher and more powerful considera- 
tions why Congress ought to take charge of this subject. If we 
were only to consider the pecuniary advantages of a good system 
of roads and canals, it might admit of some doubt whether they 
ought not to be left wholly to individual exertions ; but when we 
come to consider how intimately the strength and political pros- 
perity of the Republic are connected with this subject, we find 

true construction of the Constitution in reference to that dangerous 
power." 

* s Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816-17, 
pp. 851-858. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 207 

the most urgent reasons why we should apply our resources to 
them. In many respects no country of equal population and 
wealth possesses equal materials of power with ours. The people, 
in muscular power, in hardy and enterprising habits, and in a 
lofty and gallant courage, are surpassed by none. In one re- 
spect, and, in my opinion, in one only, are we materially weak. 
We occupy a surface prodigiously great in proportion to our 
numbers. The common strength is brought to bear with great 
difficulty on the point that may be menaced by an enemy. . . . 
Good roads and canals, judiciously laid out are the proper rem- 
edy. . . . But on this subject of national power, what, said Mr. 
Calhoun, can be more important than a perfect unity in every 
part, in feelings and sentiments? And what can tend more 
powerfully to produce it than overcoming the effects of distance? 
No country, enjoying freedom, ever occupied anything like as 
great an extent of country as this Republic. . . . Let it not, 
however, be forgotten, let it, said he, be forever kept in mind, 
that it [our vastness] exposes us to the greatest of all calamities, 
next to the loss of liberty, and even to that in its consequence — 
disunion. We are great, and rapidly — he was about to say fear- 
fully — growing. This, said he, is our pride and our danger — 
our weakness and our strength. Little, said Mr. Calhoun, does 
he deserve to be intrusted with the liberties of this people, who 
does not raise his mind to these truths. We are under the most 
imperious obligation to counteract every tendency to disunion. 
The strongest of all cements is, undoubtedly, the wisdom, jus- 
tice, and, above all, the moderation of this House ; yet the 
great object on which we are now deliberating, in this respect, 
deserves the most serious consideration. . . . Let us then, said 
Mr. Calhoun, bind the Republic together with a perfect system 
of roads and canals. Let us conquer space. ... So situated, 
said he, blessed with a form of Government at once combining 
liberty and strength, we may reasonably raise our eyes to a most 
splendid future, if we only act in a manner worthy of our advan- 
tages. If, however, neglecting them, we permit a low, sordid, 
selfish, and sectional spirit to take possession of this House, this 
happy scene will vanish. We will divide, and in its consequences 
will follow misery and degradation. . . . 

Such, then, being the obvious advantages of internal improve- 
ments, why, said Mr. Calhoun, should the House hesitate to 
commence the system? He understood there were, with some 



208 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

members, constitutional objections. The power of Congress is 
objected to — first, that they have none to cut a road or canal 
through a State without its consent; and next, that the public 
moneys can only be appropriated to effect the particular powers 
enumerated in the constitution. The first of these objections, it 
is plain, does not apply to this bill. No particular road or canal 
is proposed to be cut through any State. The bill simply appro- 
priates money to the general purpose of improving the means of 
communication. When a bill is introduced to apply the money 
to a particular object in any State, then, and not till then, will 
the question be fairly before us. Mr. Calhoun gave no opinion 
on this point. In fact, he scarcely thought it worth the discus- 
sion, since the good sense of the States might be relied on. They 
will in all cases readily yield their assent. The fear is in a 
different direction ; in a too great solicitude to obtain an undue 
share to be expended within their respective limits. In fact, he 
said, he understood this was not the objection insisted on. It 
was mainly urged that the Congress can only apply the public 
money in execution of the enumerated powers. He was no ad- 
vocate for refined arguments on the constitution. The instru- 
ment was not intended as a thesis for the logician to exercise his 
ingenuity on. It ought to be construed with plain, good sense ; 
and what can be more express than the constitution on this very 
point? The first power delegated to Congress is comprised in 
these words " To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Ex- 
cises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and 
general Welfare of the United States ; but all Duties, Imposts 
and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States " ; 
First — the power is given to lay taxes ; next, the objects are 
enumerated to which the money accruing from the exercise of 
this power may be applied ; to pay the debts, provide for the 
common defence and promote the general welfare. ... If the 
framers had intended to limit the use of the money to the powers 
afterwards enumerated and defined, nothing could have been 
more easy than to have expressed it plainly. He knew it was 
the opinion of some that the words " to pay the debts, and pro- 
vide for the common defence and general welfare " which he 
had just cited were not intended to be referred to the power of 
laying taxes, contained in the first part of the section, but that 
they are to be understood as distinct and independent powers, 
granted in general terms; and are gratified by a more detailed 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 209 

enumeration of powers in the subsequent part of the constitu- 
tion. . . . [He did not accept this view.] . . . He asked the 
Members to read the section with attention, and it would, he 
conceived, plainly appear that such could not be the intention. 
The whole section seemed to him to be about taxes. It plainly 
commenced and ended with it, and nothing else could be more 
strained than to suppose the intermediate words " to pay the 
debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare " 
were to be taken as independent and distinct powers. Forced, 
however, as such a construction was, he might admit it and urge 
that the words do constitute a part of the enumerated powers. 
. . . But suppose the constitution to be silent, said Mr. Calhoun, 
why should we be confined to the application of money to the 
enumerated powers? There is nothing in the reason of the 
thing that he could perceive, why it should be so restricted ; and 
the habitual and uniform practice of the Government coincided 
with his opinion. [He here cited instances of charitable be- 
quests, the purchase of Louisiana, the appropriations for the 
Cumberland road.] ... In reply to this uniform course of legis- 
lation, Mr. Calhoun expected it would be said that our constitu- 
tion was founded on positive and written principles, and not on 
precedents. He did not deny the position; but he introduced 
these instances to prove the uniform sense of Congress and of 
the country (for they had not been objected to) as to our powers; 
and surely, said he, they furnish better evidence of the true in- 
terpretation of the constitution than the most refined and subtle 
arguments. 

Let it not be urged that the construction for which he con- 
tended gave a dangerous extent to the powers of Congress. In 
this point of view, he conceived it to be more safe than the oppo- 
site. By giving a reasonable extent to the money power, it 
exempted us from the necessity of giving a strained and forced 
construction to the other enumerated powers. . . . He was not 
adverse to presenting his views [as to the internal improvements 
to be carried out]. The first great object was to perfect the 
communication from Maine to Louisiana. This might fairly be 
considered as the principal artery of the whole system. The 
next was the connexion of the Lakes with the Hudson river. 
. . . The next object of chief importance was to connect all the 
great commercial points on the Atlantic, Philadelphia, Boston, 
Washington, Richmond [sic], Charleston and Savannah, with 



210 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the Western States; and finally to perfect the intercourse be- 
tween the West and New Orleans. These seemed to him to be 
the great objects. 

The bill passed the House on February 8, 1 817, by the close 
vote of 86 to 84, and was sent to the President for his ap- 
proval, after certain Senate amendments had been concurred 
in. 49 It was by this time a very different measure from that 
which Calhoun had proposed, and it is curious to find 50 that, 
among other amendments made to this proposal of the future 
strong advocate of State Rights, was one that owed its origin 
to the rampant Federalist, Pickering, and required the consent 
of any State to the building of a road or canal within its lim- 
its. 

But a serious disappointment awaited the author of the 
measure. It has been said that Calhoun thought he was act- 
ing directly in the line desired by Madison, and it seems to 
me clear that the two messages quoted justified this belief. 
A bill to do less in the matter of internal improvements would 
have been hard to draw; and, if Madison meant to suggest 
a constitutional amendment and no present legislative action, 
his two messages should apparently have contained simply 
a recommendation of the amendment and nothing else. But 
it is possible that his mind was not made up at the time and 
that later reflection convinced him that no power upon the 
subject was vested in Congress. 

Calhoun's knowledge of the intention to veto came to him 
in a curious way. . The bill reached the President a few days 
before the end of his term and his final retirement from pub- 
lic life, and while it was still in his hands Calhoun called to 
take leave. It was his farewell visit, and he congratulated 
the retiring veteran upon the success of the Administration 

49 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816-17, 
pp. 185-88, 191, 934, 1052, 1059-62. 

50 Pickering moved an amendment requiring among other things the 
assent of a State to the building of a road, or canal, within its limits; 
and when Calhoun moved to amend the amendment by striking out the 
words " with the consent of the State," the motion was lost by a large 
majority, and Pickering's amendment was agreed to without a division. 
Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816-17, pp. 
875, 916-18, 922. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 211 

and expressed the happiness he felt at having been able to 
cooperate during the most trying period. He then took his 
leave. Madison, however, called him back when he had al- 
ready reached the door; and for the first time the President 
disclosed his belief that the measure was unconstitutional, and 
added that he intended to veto it. 

Calhoun, we are told, expressed deep regret that Madison 
should hold this belief and had not earlier intimated his feel- 
ing, and added that, if he had been informed in time, he would 
have spared the President the necessity, so late in the day, of 
vetoing a measure passed by the votes of his friends and would 
himself have avoided seeing the name and authority of the 
President brought against him upon the question. Calhoun 
even entreated the President to reconsider the question ; but it 
was too late. Madison's mind was made up, and the veto came 
in upon March 3, 18 17. 51 It was based upon the fact that 
the power was not among those enumerated and could not 
be derived from any of the general expressions. It could not 
by any just interpretation be included within the power to 
make laws necessary and proper, nor could the power to 
regulate commerce among the several States include it, in 
the President's opinion, " without a latitude of construction 
departing from the ordinary import of the terms," while to 
refer it to the power to provide for the common defence and 
general welfare would be contrary to the established rules of 
interpretation. 

Thus came to an untimely end a measure that had probably 
been a pet one with Calhoun. It would be interesting to know 

51 " Autobiography," p. 21 ; Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, 
Second Session, 1816-17, pp. 1060, 1061. Calhoun told a friend in 1831 
that he had always had his doubts and had never once committed himself 
on the constitutional question as to internal improvements, — " That he 
had refused to do so in his Bonus Bill Report, against the wishes both 
of Gay and Lowndes, telling them he had his doubts. . . . Mr. Madison 
did it [vetoed the bill] to please Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Calhoun said he 
had been immediately transferred from Congress to the War Department 
and had never had an opportunity of vindicating himself from the various 
charges made upon him on this score which he felt himself prepared 
to do most triumphantly whenever called upon in such a manner that he 
could come out with propriety." J. H. Hammond's Memorandum of Cal- 
houn's Conversation of Mar. 18, 1831, in Nullification in South Carolina, 
1830-34- " Amer. Historical Review," Vol. VI, (1900-1), pp. 741-45- 



212 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

how he felt and what he said as to the author of his discom- 
fiture, whose action was certainly not to be anticipated after 
what had preceded it; but Calhoun did not keep a diary in 
which to pour out gall in relation to the actions of his con- 
temporaries, nor do I know of any letter to an intimate in 
which he expressed his feelings. There can be no doubt that 
his advocacy of a federal system of roads and canals was to 
a considerable extent induced by the prevalence of a like sys- 
tem in South Carolina. 

It has been already said that there were several matters of 
lesser importance upon which Calhoun spoke and in which he 
took a leading part during his service in the House. He 
seems to have been always present, was thoroughly conver- 
sant with the details of our system of administration, and it 
is evident that, though he was often on the floor, he was 
carefully listened to and wielded great power over the assem- 
blage. In some of these instances it is easy to find traces of 
the later tendencies of his mind, but in others this is not the 
case. In all he threw light upon the subject under discus- 
sion and was certainly a very useful member. 

On January 9, 18 16, while the House had under discussion 
a bill for carrying into effect the Convention of Commerce be- 
tween the United States and Great Britain, he spoke 52 upon 
that thorn of constitutional students, the treaty-making power 
under our constitution and reasoned upon it so closely, that 
William Pinkney is said to have referred to him in the fol- 
lowing words uttered later in the debate: 

The subject has already been treated with an admirable force 
and perspicuity, on all sides of the House. The strong power of 
argument has drawn aside, as it ought to do, the veil which is 
supposed to belong to it, and which some of us seem unwilling 
to disturb ; and the stronger power of genius, from a higher 

52 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, 
pp. 526-33. Pinkney's speech, quoted immediately infra, is to be found 
in ibid., pp. 564-65. "Autobiography," p. 24. The "Autobiography" 
furnishes the only positive proof that Pinkney referred in particular to 
Calhoun's speech, though the debate makes this seem highly likely. The 
student of the treaty-making power can find it treated again by Calhoun 
at a later date in his " Discourse on the Constitution and Government 
of the United States," " Works," Vol. I, pp. 201-204. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 213 

region than that of argument, has thrown upon it all the light 
with which it is the prerogative of genius to invest and illustrate 
everything. 

In the course of the same debate, this defender par excel- 
lence in later days of Southern views spoke as follows, 53 in 
referring to the provision of the constitution to allow the 
slave-trade until 1808: 

It covered him with confusion to name it here. He felt 
ashamed of such a tolerance, and took a large part of the dis- 
grace, as he represented a part of the Union by whose influence 
it might be supposed to have been introduced. Though Congress 
alone is prohibited by the words of the clause from inhibiting 
that odious traffic, yet his colleague would admit that it was in- 
tended to be a general prohibition on the Government of the 
Union. He perceived his colleague indicated his dissent. 

Some will find here a grave inconsistency with the speak- 
er's later views, which the present writer, however, does not 
think has any essential existence. I should say that the young 
Calhoun in this instance merely spoke out his views freely in 
regard to a subject that had not then become vital by the agi- 
tation of the slavery issue. Later, when the very civilization 
of his home region seemed to him to be endangered thereby, 
he would certainly not have openly expressed this same feel- 
ing, though he may well have continued to feel it. 

On December 17, 18 16, when there was pending a pro- 
posal to amend the Constitution so as " to establish an uni- 
formity of the mode of election [i. e. by districts] in all the 
States, of Representatives to Congress and Electors of Presi- 
dent and Vice-President/' Calhoun observed 54 that " he con- 
sidered this a question of great importance. He thought the 
proposed amendment to the constitution, if adopted, would 
remove some evils which experience has shown to exist, and 
which in future time, if uncorrected, may menace the exist- 
ence of the Republic. He therefore thought this subject en- 

53 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, 
PP- 531, 532. 

54 Ibid., Second Session, 1816-17, p. 311. The same subject is advocated 
by him in letters of 1825; "Correspondence," p. 230; "Bulletin of the 
New York Public Library," Vol. Ill (1889), PP- 328, 329. 



214 L II? E OF JOHN C CALHOUN 

titled to the most mature consideration." The same amend- 
ment was in later years advocated by other members, but I 
am not aware that Calhoun then took any active interest in it. 

When questions of public law began to come before Con- 
gress in regard to the revolting Spanish-American colonies, 
Calhoun, in common with other members, said 55 that he 
wished the colonies well, but added that he would not allow 
these wishes to influence him to permit a violation of our 
neutrality. He seems, however, to have been rather easy in 
his view as to what constituted neutrality and in reply to Hop- 
kinson of Pennsylvania contended that " to sell vessels to 
either of the belligerents was no violation of our neutrality, 
and that a trade in arms and munitions, or in vessels, stood 
on the same footing. Spain herself purchased vessels at Ha- 
vana for the public service, and she could not object to an act 
in others, which she had done herself. ... To sell armed 
vessels in our own ports to a belligerent, he acknowledged 
would be illegal, but maintained that they might be transferred 
after their departure beyond the jurisdiction of the country." 

He was a strong believer, it seems, in holding governmen- 
tal agencies strictly to the law. On one occasion, when the 
statute, — already referred to, — to pay owners for property 
destroyed by the enemy under certain conditions seems to have 
been interpreted by the Commissioner thereunder in a way 
to threaten the Government with bankruptcy, Forsyth intro- 
duced resolutions to request the President to order the further 
execution of the law suspended, but Calhoun at once said that 
the defect was not in the law but in its execution, and added 
that he did not want to give his support to any proposition 
that assumed the power of the House to suspend a law. The 
result was that the law was amended and limited. 50 

Another instance in which he aimed to curb the Executive 
is not altogether dissimilar. Under some interpretation of a 
statute, it was then the custom for the President to transfer 
appropriations at his discretion from one branch of the serv- 

r > 5 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816-17, 
pp. 747, 752. 

56 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816-17, 
pp. a*6, 291, 390-94, 1345-47. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 215 

ice to another in the War and Navy departments, and this 
was a power that those in authority wanted to preserve. Cal- 
houn expressed himself very strongly against it. He said: 

It was a sheer abuse of power, not justified by the existing 
laws, as lax as they unfortunately are on this point. . . . The 
further we progress in this business, the more apparent is the 
necessity of abolishing the whole power of transfers. . . . Not 
a cent of money ought to be applied but by our direction and 
under our control. How stands the fact? We are told that 
most extensive and superb stone barracks, sufficient to receive 
two thousand troops, have, the last year, been erected near 
Sackett's Harbor, though not a cent was appropriated to this 
object. . . . He conceived it to be indispensable that our appro- 
priations should be made in many respects more specific. . . . 
It is then indispensable that the right of transferring, or rather 
dispensing with appropriations, be repealed and prohibited. In 
the next place, the year for the appropriation and for expendi- 
ture should coincide. 

He had already moved a resolution looking to repeal of 
the power of transfer, and later in the session a statute was 
passed to curtail it, though not so completely as Calhoun had 
wanted. This result was accomplished, too, in spite of the 
opposition of the Executive and of Cheves, the Chairman of 
the Ways and Means Committee. 57 

In relation to military matters, he was active, both during 
the war and after it, and was evidently well-informed for a 
civilian. Herein may possibly be found one of the reasons 
for that transfer of his services to the War Department at 
which we have now nearly arrived. This subject has already 
been referred to in part, but some other details remain, which 
show moreover, that he stood very close to Monroe during 
the latter's administration of the War Department. On No- 
vember 10, 1814, Calhoun offered resolutions directing the 
Committee on Military Affairs to inquire into the expediency 
of changing the then mode of supplying the army by con- 

57 Journal of the House, Second Session, Fourteenth Congress, p. 119. 
Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816-17, pp. 
374, 956-960: Ibid., "Appendix," p. 13,36; "Autobiography," p. 24; "Cal- 
houn Correspondence," p. 795. 



216 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

tract, and to report; and also that the Secretary of War be 
directed to inform the House whether the army was trained 
by one uniform system of discipline, and if not what causes 
have prevented it. 58 In a short speech, he said he heard from 
reliable sources that, under the prevailing system of supply, 
speculation was not infrequent and the army often left inef- 
ficient. He also referred to the vital necessity of good train- 
ing and then told the House that there was no unity of disci- 
pline, as many as five or six systems being employed. " So 
great was this variance," — such was the lamentable picture 
he drew of our lack of military unity, — " that no large body 
of our Army, Brown's command perhaps excepted, could be 
properly exercised together." 

Monroe replied to the inquiry in a few days (November 
23rd) that " no uniform system of discipline has heretofore 
been practised in training the Armies of the United States, 
either in line, by battalion, or company," and he recommended 
a Board of General and Field Officers to digest and report a 
plan. On Calhoun's motion, the matter was referred to a 
special committee, from which he soon reported a resolution 
" that the Secretary of War be directed to appoint a Board 
of Officers to modify ' the rules and regulations for the field 
exercise and manoeuvres of the French infantry,' as translated 
by Macdonald, so as to make them correspond with the or- 
ganization of the Army of the United States, and to make 
such additions and retrenchments as may be thought proper; 
and to lay the same as soon as possible before this House." 
The resolution was agreed to by the House, but the matter 
seems to have gone no further. 

Surely, here was an awful expose of our unfitness for the 
serious business of war, and here was a field for the ambi- 
tion of any man having the ability to conceive and introduce 
a system where such chaos then prevailed! 

Calhoun by no means belonged in that class of fiery and 
aggressive members who are forever in a wrangle with some 

58 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Third Session, 1814-15, 
Vol. Ill, pp. 550, 551. Monroe's reply to the inquiry is in ibid., p. 638, and 
for later proceedings see pp. 988, 989. As to Calhoun's relations with 
Monroe, see also p. 226, post. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 217 

one; but at the same time it has been shown that he was al- 
ways ready, in case of need, to meet the very ablest of his col- 
leagues, and even such as were much his senior and celebrated 
for their caustic tongue. He had either volunteered or been 
selected early in his service to cross swords with the bitter 
Randolph, and in several other instances had minor clashes 
with him. With Webster, too, by far the most brilliant of 
those then just coming upon the stage of public events and 
bursting with the most ultra opposition to all the measures 
of his country, Calhoun had numerous exchanges in debate, 
but all these passed off kindly and evidently left no feeling. 
So far as Webster is concerned, his relations then as well as 
all through their long association were generally friendly, and 
I find no instance in which even Randolph found occasion to 
quarrel with the young South Carolinian, despite the fact 
that they were constantly on opposite sides and were often 
directly pitted against each other. Randolph will, indeed, be 
shortly quoted as speaking in terms of high praise of the 
younger member, even at the very moment of disagreeing 
from him to to ccclo. 

He was, however, too prominent on the floor not to be sin- 
gled out now and then for attack. In November, 1814, when 
the war outlook was black indeed and the bank bill once more 
in the throes of failure, Hanson of Maryland said: 

I am glad to see that gentlemen on the other side of the House 
have at last collected the courage, and manifested their deter- 
mination to pursue what they call an ignis fatuus (Mr. Calhoun) 
no further. An ignis fatuus, truly, sir, and which, like other 
jack-o'-lanterns, engendered in the fens of party, will play about 
the surface of those stagnated pools until it sinks and is extin- 
guished. It was this same bold and false prophet who led us 
into Canada to conquer free trade and sailors' rights; and such 
is the sanguine nature of the late Chairman of the Committee of 
Foreign Relations, that I have no doubt even now he would con- 
tract, if he could find security for the forfeiture, to capture in 
six weeks, more or less, the whole British army and deliver them, 
bound hand and foot, at the Capitol. 

Here the ironical member was called to order by the Speaker 



218 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

and continued in a milder key. Calhoun at once replied, but 
his speech is not printed and the " Annals " merely record that 
during the speeches of both, " they were called to order more 
than once by the Speaker." 69 

So far as I have found, there was but one instance in these 
days in which Calhoun fell into an actual quarrel with a mem- 
ber. Thomas P. Grosvenor was a leading representative from 
New York during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth, as well as 
part of the Twelfth Congresses at the same time with Cal- 
houn, and was a strong opponent of the war. So bitter in- 
deed was his opposition that Charles J. Ingersoll, who was a 
member with him during the war, writes 60 of " Grosvenor 
and Pickering, always opposed to the administration, what- 
ever it wanted." A couple of instances have already been 
cited 61 in which Calhoun expressed indignation at certain sen- 
timents uttered by Grosvenor in debate, and it was there sug- 
gested that these differences may well have been concerned in 
leading up to the trouble. 

The actual quarrel, so the '* Autobiography " 62 tells us, oc- 
curred in one of the secret sessions during the war, and after 
that time the two members were not on speaking terms. An- 
other authority 63 tells us that the matter went so far that a 
duel was arranged for and was only prevented by the inter- 
ference of Clay. The latter, so this story runs, was called 
upon " in his retirement by a learned gentleman, indifferent 
to both parties, who desired his official interference. Refus- 
ing for obvious reasons this species of interposition, Mr. Clay, 
however, volunteered his friendly efforts at a pacification, and 
succeeded just in time to avert extremities." 

59 Annals of Congress, Thirteenth Congress, Third Session, 1814-15, 
Vol. Ill, pp. 662-665. 

60 "Second War/' Vol. II (1814), P- 262. 
01 P. 149, ante. 

62 Pp. 23, 24. 

6a " An Argument on the Powers, Duties and Conduct of the Hon. John 
C. Calhoun as Vice-President of the United States and President of 
the Senate" (reprinted from the "National Journal"), Washington, 
1827. Letter No. 5 ("National Journal," August 8, 1826), p. 56. The 
"Autobiography," (p. 31) and Jenkins ("Life," p. 159) both write 
that these anonymous letters were supposed to have been written by the 
then President, John Quincy Adams, but this subject will be considered 
later. Mr. Jervey (" Robert Y. Hayne and his Times," p. 50) writes 
that Clay and Senator Bibb of Georgia were Calhoun's seconds. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 219 

This quarrel with Grosvenor was presumably made up at 
a later date, for near the close of the session, and the very 
day after Calhoun's speech in opposition to the repeal of the 
increase of salary bill, Grosvenor said on the floor of the 
House : 

I have heard, with peculiar satisfaction, the able, manly, and 
constitutional speech of the gentleman from South Carolina. Mr. 
Speaker, I will not be restrained. No barrier shall exist which 
I will not leap over for the purpose of offering to that gentleman 
my thanks for the judicious, independent, and national course, 
which he has pursued in this House for the last two years, and 
particularly upon the subject now before us. Let the honorable 
gentleman continue with the same manly independence, aloof 
from party views and local prejudices, to pursue the great inter- 
ests of his country, and fulfil the high destiny for which it is 
manifest he was born. The buzz of popular applause may not 
cheer him on his way, but he will inevitably arrive at a high and 
happy elevation in the view of his country and the world. 



64 



The reader, who is familiar with Calhoun's method of ap- 
proaching constitutional questions in later life, will, I think, 
have observed how differently these questions were regarded 
by him in his earlier years. There was, of course, during 
his term of service in the House the vast difference that, for 
reasons already referred to, he generally wanted to find the 
power, and here is a motive that absolutely controls many 
minds and vastly influences all. But it is to me impossible 
to imagine the older Calhoun omitting to discuss C5 the ques- 
tion of the constitutional power to create a bank, even when 
members' minds were made up; or to no little extent basing 
another power on a short-lived and occasional practice of the 
government ; 6G and still less making such arguments as those 
which he has been shown to have made upon the question of 

64 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816-17, 
p. 621. Grosvenor was at this time by no means cheered on by " the 
buzz of popular applause." He was one of the victims of the Salary 
Bill, for which he had voted, — as had Calhoun, — but the New Yorker 
was less fortunate than the South Carolinian and was never again in 
Congress. 

65 Quoted ante, p. 193. 

66 Speech on Internal Improvements quoted ante, pp. 206-210. 



220 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the federal control of the finances, or as to internal improve- 
ments. 67 The easy interpretation 68 that a statute reading 
that certain payments on the bank's capital should be made in 
specie was fulfilled by payment in banknotes, loaned by the 
bank upon the stock itself as security, is much of the same 
general character. 

A great difference, too, is to be found in the mere style of 
his speeches in later life and as a young man. In the earlier 
period there is a tendency to antithesis, a possible redundancy 
of expression, and a general straining after oratorical meth- 
ods, utterly unknown to the little ornamented but so com- 
pelling logic of his later years. As a young man, he undoubt- 
edly cultivated the arts of the orator, and his style is often 
florid and, in some instances, — so it seems to the writer, — 
even sophomoric. The peroration to one of his speeches on 
a revenue question already quoted, 69 may well serve as an il- 
lustration of the latter point, while nearly all bear traces of 
the other tendencies, — perhaps notably those upon the repeal 
of the embargo and upon the Loan Bill in 1814. 70 He was 
evidently looked upon as a rising orator, in the sense of one 
who convinces or influences by moving appeals and brilliant 
language, 71 and not at all chiefly by cold-cut reasoning. The 
" Autobiography " records that William Lowndes was struck 
with Calhoun's great improvement in speaking and urged him 
not to leave the halls of legislation. 

Some contemporary authorities may serve to give us an 
idea of his manner. One of these writes: 72 

Mr. Calhoun is a young man of great sensibility — has had 
the advantage of an excellent education, aided by astonishing 
powers of memory — recites in debate the anecdotes and inci- 
dents of both modern and ancient history with wonderful facility 

67 Quoted respectively ante, pp. 193 and 206 e t seq. 
08 See ante, p. 196. 

69 Ante, p. 181. 

70 Ante, pp. 132-134 and 152. 

71 " Measures not Men," ut supra, regards his speech on the Direct Tax 
Bill. — a small portion of which is quoted at pages 180, 181, ante, — as "a 
perfect model of parliamentary eloquence " ; p. 26. 

72 The New York " Evening Post " of March 15, 1814, quoted in Jer- 
vey's "Hayne," p. 51. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 221 

and accuracy — is dexterous in the management of a political 
cause — exercises a goodly share of zeal — commands a rapid 
though limited eloquence, little embellished by metaphor or 
imagery — supported by a charming metaphysical analysis and 
prompted by an apparent sagacity almost peculiar to himself on 
the floor, where he exhibits. He is the leader of what is called 
the Administration party in the House. 

And Ingersoll writes : 73 

John Caldwell Calhoun was the same slender, erect, and ardent 
logician, politician, and sectarian in the House of Representa- 
tives in 1814 that he is in the Senate of 1847. Speaking with 
aggressive aspect, flashing eye, rapid action and enunciation, un- 
adorned argument, eccentricity of judgment, unbounded love of 
rule, impatient, precipitate ambition, kind temper, excelling in 
colloquial attraction, caressing the young, not courting rulers; 
conception, perception, and demonstration quick and clear, with 
logical precision arguing paradoxes, and carrying home convic- 
tion beyond rhetorical illustration; his own impressions so in- 
tense as to discredit, scarcely listen to, any other suggestions; 
well educated and informed. 

In far simpler language a prominent Republican of Maine, 
after hearing the speech on the bonus bill, wrote 74 of Calhoun 
in 181 7 as being both in the writer's and the general opinion 
" the most elegant speaker that sits in the House," and then 
goes on : " His gestures are easy and graceful, his manner 
forcible, and language elegant ; but above all, he confines him- 
self closely to the subject, which he always understands, and 
enlightens every one within his hearing; having said all that 
a statesman should say, he is done. I am told that he has 
the most weight in that body, and so he should have, for he 
can more fully comprehend a subject, and is always ruled by 
a liberal and enlightened policy." 

Finally, a few words more must be said in the interest of 
historic truth, and by no means with any desire to carp at the 
human frailties of a great statesman, — in regard to the fact 

™ " Second War," Vol. II, 1814, p. 258. 

74 James C. Jewett to Gen. Dearborn, from Washington, February 5. 
1817 : " William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine," Vol. 
XVII, No. 2 (Oct., 1908), pp. 139-144- 



222 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

that no long course of years elapsed before Calhoun's opinions 
on many of the subjects he discussed in the House between 
1811 and 18 1 7 had undergone a very great and fundamental 
change. The human mind is forever growing, and it should 
not be a discredit to a public man that he has thought differ- 
ently of the same subject at different times. Not only do one's 
tendencies and consequent beliefs inevitably vary, as the swift 
years rush by, but circumstances change so enormously in 
the complicated affairs of man that the subject itself becomes 
quite another one in a relative sense. 

The stern and -unbending Tory of early youth grows into 
the advocate of household suffrage and Irish Home Rule in 
later life. The anti-monarchist and almost-Republican of 
youthful days turns into the man of blood and iron and cre- 
ates the German Empire, overriding law and ruthlessly crush- 
ing his earlier partners in belief. The freetrader Webster, 
forever breathing in early days the unpatriotic opposition of 
his section to the War of 18 12 and full of prophecies of evil 
to our constitutional " compact," becomes a leader of the pro- 
tective forces, the expounder of the Constitution, the man 
who probably did more, prior to 1861, than any other of the 
sons of men to make America a nation. So of all of us ; and 
so a biographer must be allowed to say, without impropriety,, 
of his chosen subject. 

An observer, whose pen was probably not guided by preju- 
dice, wrote thus of Calhoun about 1823 : — " He is ardent, 
persevering, industrious and temperate, of great activity and 
quickness of perception, and rapidity of utterance; as a poli- 
tician too theorizing, speculative and metaphysical — magnifi- 
cent in his views of the powers and capacities of the govern- 
ment, and of the virtue, intelligence and wisdom of the peo- 
ple. He is in favor of elevating, cherishing and increasing all 
the institutions of the government, and of a vigorous and ener- 
getic administration of it. From his rapidity of thought, he 
is often wrong in his conclusions, and his theories are some- 
times wild, extravagant and impractical." 7B 

75 Letter of Elijah H. Mills, undated but supposed to be of 1823 and 
to his wife, in " Proceedings Mass. Historical Society," Vol. XIX (1881- 
82), pp. 37, 38. Mills was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts in 
1821 and sat until 1827. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 223 

During Calhoun's early days in the Legislature, one at least 
of the older men, but a crabbed character and long a mere 
Thersites, saw the tendency of Calhoun's then views to crip- 
ple the power of the States and turn all eyes to the federal 
government, so that it cannot be said that the issue was en- 
tirely un-made up. John Randolph of Roanoke spoke as fol- 
lows in reply to a speech 76 of Calhoun's in 1816 in favor of 
a strong army and navy and advocating protection and in- 
ternal improvements : 

I must say, in the abstract, I was pleased with the gentleman's 
speech, but I have long believed there was a tendency in the ad- 
ministration of this Government, in the system itself indeed, to 
consolidation, and the remarks made by the honorable member 
from South Carolina have not tended to allay any fears I have 
entertained from that quarter. ... He put it to the Committee, 
to the gentleman himself, whether the gentleman's principles 
(which he had demonstrated with an ability honorable to the 
State which he represented, to the House, and to himself) did 
not go to the destruction of the State governments. ... I say 
that these doctrines go to prostrate the State governments at the 
feet of the General Government. . . . Upon whom bears the 
duty on coarse woolens, and linens, and blankets, upon salt, and 
all the necessities of life? On poor men and on slave-holders. 

There is no evidence, so far as I know, that these remarks 
were sown on good ground and soon grew in Calhoun's mind ; 
but they were possibly not forgotten, and in no long course 
of years, — when the younger man had changed and had come 
to think much as Randolph had so much earlier thought upon 
the interests of the South in all these matters, — the views of 
his older colleague evidently came to mind, and he probably 
felt that Randolph had in general been right. Indeed, as to 
the latter's course upon the first outbreak of the slavery 
trouble, Calhoun expressly said in the Senate on January 12, 
1838, that his bitter opposition to the Missouri Compromise 
might have resulted in crushing abolition at its birth, and then 

70 Quoted at pp. i8o, i8i, ante. Randolph's speech is from the Annals 
of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, First Session, 1815-16, pp. 840-42. 
Macon, too, pointed out the danger a few years later. " If Congress can 
make canals," he wrote, " they can with more propriety emancipate." 
William E. Dodd's "Nathaniel Macon," pp. 310-11. 



224 LIFE OF J° HN c - CALHOUN 

went on that he himself had at the time thought Randolph 
" too unyielding, too uncompromising, too impracticable, but 
had been taught his error and took pleasure in acknowledging 
it." 77 

In 1837, too, when his later beliefs had pretty well taken 
shape, Calhoun said 78 in the Senate on February 18th, in op- 
position to a resolution for the purchase of the Madison manu- 
scripts, that he " admitted that when a young man, and at his 
entrance upon political life, he had been inclined to that in- 
terpretation of the constitution which favored a latitude of 
powers, but experience, observation and reflection had wrought 
a great change in his views ; and, above all, the transcendent 
argument of Mr. Madison himself, in his celebrated resolu- 
tions of 1798, had done more than all other things to con- 
vince him of his error." 

In very late life, too, he had clearly come to think that a 
national bank, — one of which he had done so much to cre- 
ate, — was a most undesirable agency for us. He wrote 79 
near the close of his days, referring to the first bank and pos- 
sibly thinking also of the second, and with evident approval, 
that Jefferson " took strong positions against the Bank of the 
United States, and laid the foundations for its final over- 
throw " ; and again that " it was due to the Democratic party, 
to say that they are " entitled to the credit of putting down the 
Bank of the United States." 80 Finally, when in this same 
writing he considers the centralizing tendencies of the War 
of 1812 and refers to how largely it contributed to drive us 
away from the earlier and sounder Republican system, one 
cannot help supposing that he had in mind the influence of 
that war upon his own beliefs and actions. 81 

« " Works," Vol. Ill, p. 185. 

78 " Congressional Debates," Vol. XIIT. Part I, 1836-37, p. 866. 

79 " Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States," 
" Works," Vol. I, p. 359. 

80 Ibid., p. 371. 

81 Ibid., pp. 361-364. 



CHAPTER X 

in monroe's cabinet 

Secretary of War — Internal Improvements — Cabinet Dis- 
cussions — Missouri Compromise — Party Politics — Rip- 
Rap Contract Investigation — Political Calumny — The Tar- 
iff — South Carolina Politics — Calhoun's Home. 

When, after the close of the Fourteenth Congress on March 
3, 1817, Calhoun once more returned South to his home, he 
bore with him a reputation such as few men of thirty-five 
attain. He ranked, beyond doubt, among the very first of 
the leaders in Congress and was favorably known far and 
wide throughout the country. Coming to Washington but six 
years before, quite unknown except to the rather small circle 
of his home, he had steadily grown both as an orator and 
political manager, and a great future seemed to lie before 
him. He was, moreover, already a member-elect of the Fif- 
teenth Congress, having been triumphantly chosen in spite of 
the opposition caused by his vote on the Compensation Bill. 
All the probabilities seemed to indicate that he would remain 
in the halls of Congress and continue to develop in the spe- 
cial line in which he had achieved such marked success. But 
the Fates had another lot in store for him. 

Monroe was inaugurated as President on March 4, 18 17, 
and had at first designed to select his cabinet in such a way as 
to have each one of the great sections of the country repre- 
sented; but the plan was found difficult to carry out and was 
in the end to some extent abandoned. He began by filling 
only three of the portfolios; taking Adams from the East for 
the State Department, Crawford from the South for the Treas- 
ury, and Isaac Shelby of Kentucky for the War Office. The 
latter position had been already offered to Clay, but had been 

refused, apparently with some anger, as Clay wanted to be 

225 



226 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Secretary of State, with an eye to the succession. Jackson, 
too, had been thought of before Shelby but had soon intimated 
a desire not to be nominated. 

Shelby, who was an old man, declined the appointment, 
and the War Office was temporarily filled by George Graham, 
— long its chief clerk. In the fall Monroe tendered it in turn 
to Lowndes, who had been asked by Madison late in his ad- 
ministration to accept the same place. Lowndes also de- 
clined, however; and then Monroe thought of Calhoun and 
of General John Williams of Tennessee. The choice fell 
upon Calhoun, and the portfolio was offered to him by letter 
of October 10, and accepted by the next mail in a letter dated 
November i. 1 

In later years there was a controversy as to how Calhoun's 
appointment had come about, Crawford, or his friends, seem- 
ing to claim that it was due in the main to Crawford's advice; 
but there is little doubt as to the real facts. In the troubled 
times of the war, Calhoun had shown much interest in mili- 
tary affairs and had been very close to Monroe, who was Sec- 
retary of War for some months after the fall of Washington 
in 1814; and it must be that he then exhibited some qualities 
that led both Monroe and army officers to feel kindly toward 
him. Monroe once stated to Calhoun that during his tour of 
inspection in the summer of 18 17 he had " found a very gen- 
eral desire among the principal officers that I [Calhoun] should 
be appointed Secretary " ; and this, coupled with that " long 
and intimate personal acquaintance formed under the most 
trying circumstances," — of which Calhoun writes in his let- 
ters of December 9, 1827, to Monroe, — was doubtless the 
real cause for the selection being made, as soon as desired 
political combinations permitted. 2 

1 " Calhoun Correspondence," p. 131 : Hunt's " Writings of Madison," 
Vol. VIII. pp. 369-71: "Writings of Monroe," Vol. VI, pp. 4. 51 J- Q- 
Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. IV, pp. 15, 70, 71, 73; Schurz's "Clay," Vol. I. 
p. 141. Clay had heen offered the War Office by Madison in the summer 
of 1816. " letters, etc., of Madison," 186?, Vol. IV, p. 556. I presume 
that John Williams of Tennessee, Colonel of the 39th Infantry is the 
" Gen. Williams " in question. Monroe says nothing of his having been 
under consideration, but Calhoun does. 

2 " Calhoun Correspondence," pp. 251-254; and see Monroe's answer 
of December 16, in "The Writings of Janies Monroe," Vol. VII, pp. 136, 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 227 

As Calhoun's official appointment bears date the 8th of Oc- 
tober, it is likely that he had already been sounded in some way. 
Inherent probability, too, points to the same conclusion, and 
he writes in his " Autobiography " that he consulted with 
friends before accepting the offer. Lowndes and the friends 
generally advised against his acceptance, on the ground that 
Congress was the true field for his talents and that it was 
there that his mental powers would be specially useful. They 
seem to have doubted his fitness for an executive office, but 
Calhoun felt a conviction that this was an error and decided 
that he could successfully take up the very practical and ex- 
ceedingly difficult task of bringing order out of the chaos that 
had long prevailed in the department tendered him. He was 
succeeded 3 in the House by Eldred Simkins, who was long 
a friend in South Carolina. 

The United States War Office was then in a lamentable 
condition for a people just engaged in war with one of the 
most powerful nations on earth. All through the contest the 
portfolio had been indeed a most difficult problem, and Mon- 
roe himself had filled it for some five months at the same time 
that he was also acting as Secretary of State in Madison's 
Cabinet. Upon Monroe's resignation of the War Depart- 
ment portion of these double duties, General Dearborn had 
been named by Madison; but the Senate rejected the appoint- 
ment, and the office was for a time left in the temporary 
charge of Crawford. After Monroe's accession to the Presi- 
dency, moreover, it still remained for over seven months with- 
out responsible head other than the chief clerk. Indeed from 
the time of Monroe's resignation in February, 181 5, until 
Calhoun entered upon his duties in December, 1817, — a pe- 
riod of two years and ten months, — there was never a head 
of the army with a single eye to its interest. Small wonder 
that with such a history there was no control, no unity, — 

137- Crawford was apparently quite sincere in thinking that Calhoun 
owed the appointment to him. See expression in his entirely private let- 
ter of 181 1 ; Shipp's "Crawford," p. 250. Some people always think that 
their lightest words accomplish marvels. 

3 Charleston "Courier" of December 30, 1817. Simkins took his seat 
in Congress on February 9, 1818. 



228 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

hardly a single one of the elements essential to military suc- 
cess. 

So loose was the management that hosts of unbalanced and 
unsettled accounts stood upon the books of the department, 
their total actually reaching the then enormous sum (for our 
young country) of forty-five million dollars. There was not 
only no headship in the office but the duties of the Secretary 
himself were quite undefined, and his actions, as will shortly 
be shown, often in violation of all military rule. With such 
chaos prevailing at the centre, it is not surprising that the 
widely scattered army was in hopeless confusion. It is with 
a sense of blank amazement, and with wonder that we ever 
emerged from the War of 1812 still a nation, that one reads 
the facts, which it has been shown 4 Calhoun had brought to 
the attention of Congress in 1814, in regard to the complete 
lack of unity in our army. 

But there were by this time both army men and other offi- 
cials who had become conscious of these defects ; and it is no 
bold surmise to assume that Calhoun was one of these. The 
fact that he introduced the resolution that brought out the 
lamentable truth of the matter, probably afer discussion with 
Monroe, — who was then acting as Secretary of War, — indi- 
cates that he and Monroe appreciated the difficulty and de- 
signed to correct it ; and the already detailed subsequent reso- 
lution he introduced for the creation of a Board of Officers 
to prepare rules and regulations for field service points the 
same way. He wanted, too, at the same time to inquire into 
and to change the then prevailing and most inefficient mode 
of supplying our armies by contract. Nothing seems to have 
come of these efforts, and probably the matters were forgot- 
ten when peace soon followed. The difficulties continued to 
exist and came later under Calhoun's more direct control as 
head of the War Department. 

One other element contributing to the confusion and to 
its cure must be mentioned. Men given to bold and hot-headed 
ways not infrequently accomplish great ends, if their charac- 
ter or the surrounding circumstances be such that they must 

*Ante, pp. 315, 216. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 229 

be listened to. Jackson was eminently a man of this type. 
When any one trod on his toes, personal or official, trouble 
was sure to follow, and he was so often right on the main 
question that he carried his point in many instances. It has 
been said that the actions of our Secretaries of War in these 
early days were often in violation of all military rule. Thus, 
they had a practice of sending vital orders direct to some sub- 
ordinate officer, instead of through his official superior, — even 
going so far as to detach the subordinate and send him far 
away, without the superior's knowledge. 

An instance in point occurred in Jackson's command in 
1 81 4 and led to a vigorous remonstrance on his part. Again, 
in 181 7, orders were issued from the Department to one of 
his subordinates, without his being so much as informed of 
the fact, and he then " resolved to settle the difficulty in his 
own way." The method he adopted was not very suave, but 
at least it brought matters to a head and was in the end effec- 
tive. He issued of his own motion an order to his command, 
— dated April 22, 18 17, — directing the officers under him 
to refuse in the future to obey such behests of the War Of- 
fice; and when, before long, this order of his was obeyed by 
a subordinate and a command direct from the department was 
not carried out, Jackson wrote to the President on August 
12, 1817, assuming all responsibility for the "proper disobedi- 
ence " of his subordinate. Here was a serious issue with a 
general of boundless popularity. 

When Calhoun took up the duties of his new position on 
December 8, 5 181 7, this dispute with Jackson must have been 
one of the first questions to call for decision. It is evident 
that Monroe in the main sided with the department and 
against Jackson in the matter, but he says he wanted to shield 
the general, and possibly he was anxious to avoid a quarrel 
with a leading officer; so the matter was shortly settled by a 
rule, which doubtless had the approval of the President as 

°The Charleston "Courier" of December 17, 1817, quotes from the 
Washington " Gazette " of the 9th an item to the effect that Calhoun 
" was yesterday qualified and entered upon his duties " ; see also Mc- 
Duffie's " Statement in the Mix Investigation," Niles's " Register," Vol. 
XXXI, p. 405. Calhoun had arrived in Washington on December 2nd. 
"Courier" of December 13. 



y- 



230 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

well as of the new Secretary, to the effect that in future all 
orders should issue to the commanders of divisions, except 
in extraordinary cases, and then the commander should at 
once be notified. Jackson had carried his point, and his vio- 
lent and hot-headed method had led to the correction of a 
great abuse. 6 

One or two other matters of importance, which occurred 
shortly before Calhoun took charge of his office, must be men- 
tioned. On April 24, 18 16, a statute was passed to organize 
what was called the " general staff," but it must be remem- 
bered that these words had then quite a different meaning 
from either that which they came to bear in a very few years 
or that which belongs to them to-day. The new law was in 
the main based on the prior one of March 3, 1815, and pro- 
vided (e.g.) for a Quartermaster General and necessary as- 
sistants in each division. The idea of one Quartermaster 
General, one Commissary General, and so on for the whole 
army with subordinates in the divisions, responsible to the 
head of the particular branch, had not yet found expression. 
The commander-in-chief of the army at this time was Major- 
General Jacob Brown, who had been named on June 15, 181 5, 
and continued to hold the office until his death, February 24, 
1828. He was a Quaker and had been a schoolmaster in 
Bucks County, Pennsylvania, but showed himself to be a most 
efficient officer and would doubtless be better remembered to- 
day but that the brilliance of Jackson's achievement at New 
Orleans led to the eclipse of his brother officers. 

One other important step had been taken in 18 16 in our 
military organization. Madison 7 had called out from France 
and named as Chief Engineer of the Army Simon Bernard, 
who had been an aide-de-camp and prominent officer of en- 

6 Parton's " Jackson." Vol. II, pp. 375, 376. " The Military Policy of the 
United States," by Major General Emory Upton, published by the Govern- 
ment, 1004, pp. 145, 146. "Writings of James Monroe," Vol.' VII, pp. 141, 
143. The dispute with Jackson arose out of an order issued by Chief Clerk 
Graham detaching the officer in question without notice. Jackson was 
much pleased at the method of its settlement by Calhoun's order : Narra- 
tive by Wm. B. Lewis in Parton's "Jackson," Vol. Ill, p. 311. 

7 It was often said that Calhoun had caused General Bernard to be 
sent for, but such was not the case. " Congressional Debates," Vol. XI, 
Part I, 1834-35, P- 609. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 231 

gineers under Napoleon. This was not done without causing 
serious dissatisfaction among our own officers, but the emi- 
nent Frenchman long held his position with us and rendered 
most valuable service. Like so many of his countrymen, he 
returned later to his native land and died there. 

Such was approximately the condition of the War Office 
when Calhoun took charge. Everything lay before him to 
learn. We are told by his " Autobiography " that he had 
paid but little attention to military matters and had never read 
a treatise on the subject, except a small volume on the staff. 
What he did know must have been acquired through touch 
with the department during the war, and this can have been 
but little and had, of course, placed him under no responsibil- 
ity. To add to his troubles, he took charge at the very time 
when Congress was coming together and was sure to throw 
at him a thousand requests for information far easier to ask 
than to answer, while members must have been forever be- 
sieging him with propositions of every kind on behalf of their 
constituents. 

In addition to these difficulties, the long-time chief clerk, 
George Graham, resigned at this very time, 8 and the new Sec- 
retary was thus deprived of the aid of his great experience. 
Major Christopher Van Deventer, who was selected in his 
place, was without experience in the office, but had been in 
the army from 1809 to 18 16 and had held the position of dep- 
uty Quartermaster General from March, 181 3, to June, 181 5. 
During most of this time, however, he was confined in Can- 
ada 9 as a hostage, so that he had apparently had but little 
experience in war, but he became a most efficient chief clerk, 
as well as a life-long friend and supporter of Calhoun. The 
official position he occupied in the War Office was one of a 
very confidential nature and corresponded with that nowa- 
days known as Assistant Secretary. 10 

The new head determined, — so we are told in the " Auto- 

8 " Autobiography," p. 25 ; Charleston " Courier " of December 17, 1817. 

Van Deventer's own statement before the Investigating Committee 
of 1822 upon the Rip Rap Contract, printed in Niles's " Register," Vol. 
XXII, p. 262. 

10 Mr. Gaillard Hunt in his "Life of Calhoun," pp. 45, 46. 



232 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

biography," — to do as little as possible for the time but to 
listen and observe closely until he could gain a knowledge of 
the actual state of the department and its needs. Even thus, 
however, plenty of work was found by him during these days 
of observation, and he writes that not less than fourteen or 
fifteen hours of severe labor were necessary to get through 
with the daily duties. 11 Near the end of December, he had 
to make a report 12 to the President, in order to enable the 
latter to comply with a House resolution of December nth; 
but it was not a very elaborate document and merely gave de- 
tails of the strength of the army, and went on to state that 
the force was sufficient to keep the fortifications in a state of 
preservation, but wholly inadequate for defense against regu- 
lar attack. 

To this the report added, — thus showing that a design was 
already afoot in which the Secretary was very active later 
on, — that " a board of the most skillful officers in our serv- 
ice had been constituted to examine the whole line of our 
frontier, and to determine on the position and extent of works 
that may be necessary to the defense of the country." Upon 
this subject Calhoun asserted in 1838, in the course of an 
angry debate with Webster that he had projected and com- 
menced the system of fortifications for the defense of our 
harbors, but only three years before he had said that he was 
not " the author of the system of fortifications. . . . They 
were commenced in 18 16, under General Bernard, who was 
called from France by the preceding administration to super- 
intend the erection of fortifications." 13 He was, beyond 
doubt, at least a main factor in continuing them. 

But the session of Congress did not go by without the enact- 
ment into law of a conception of the utmost moment, and in- 

11 " Autobiography," pp. 25, 30. 

12 " Report to President," dated December 22, 1817, American State 
Papers, Military Affairs, Vol. I, p. 669, et seq. 

1S Speeches in the Senate on February 24, 1835 (" Congressional De- 
bates," Vol. X, Part I, 1834-35, p. 609), and on March 22, 1838 ("Con- 
gressional Globe," Twenty-Fifth Congress, Second Session, Appendix, p. 
246). Monroe had written on February 22, 1815, in a Report to Con- 
gress ("Writings," Vol. V, p. 325) : "It seems to be our duty to fortify 
our coast in such a manner as to afford protection to our principal 
cities, harbors and even to our great bays and inlets." 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 233 

deed Calhoun must have been actively engaged on this mat- 
ter within two months of taking charge of his office. What 
seems to have led to it was a marked case of failure in the 
then system of supplying our armies by local contracts. Dur- 
ing the operations against the Seminoles, the contractor had 
failed, — as not infrequently happened, — to deliver the re- 
quired articles at the places directed, and " the situation [of 
the army] had become well-nigh desperate." Williams, the 
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, on 
January 21, 181 8, moved a resolution calling for information 
upon this subject, to which Monroe answered on the 30th by 
a report from Calhoun setting forth the contract and the con- 
tractor's failure. Meanwhile Tichenor had offered resolu- 
tions in the Senate (January 22nd) looking to the abolition 
of hospital surgeons and some other grades, on the ground 
of economy. It will be found that the bill later passed was 
urged to no little extent on the plea of saving expense, and 
it was called An Act to Reduce the Staff. 

But before any bill was even introduced there were some 
very important conferences between the Secretary of War and 
Williams, in which the former broached that idea of placing 
one chief officer of high rank at the head of certain branches 
of the staff, which soon resulted in bureau or departmental ad- 
ministration. Under the system prevailing in our army down 
to that date, each separate command had a chief Commissary, 
Surgeon, Judge Advocate, etc., but there was no supreme head 
of the particular department to whom all its members were 
subordinate and to whom they reported. So far as appears, 
the change, — by which one officer was to be put at the head 
of a department and made responsible for its conduct, — was 
first broached by Calhoun in his conversations upon the sub- 
ject with Williams. 14 Fortunately for us, he summed up his 
ideas in a letter to Williams under date of February 5, 181 8. 
In this he wrote: 

14 " The Army of the United States " by Theo. F. Rodenbaugh and Wm. 
L. Haskins, p. 50; and Thomas H. S. Hamersly's "Complete Regular 
Army Register of the United States," 1779-187Q, p. 244, both speak of the 
reforms then created as originating with Calhoun. See also General 
Emory Upton's "Military Policy of the United States," pp. 149-151. 



234 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Feeling as I do the importance of a well regulated staff, I re- 
gret that want of minute knowledge in relation to it, which 
would enable me to state my ideas with great decision, both as 
to the present system, and such amendments as it may be sus- 
ceptible of. 

If the Committee should think that so much of the act of 1816, 
as creates the offices of Hospital Surgeons and Hospital sur- 
geon's mates, and judge advocates, ought to be repealed, I would 
suggest the propriety of creating in lieu of them, the offices of 
Surgeon General and Judge Advocate general. I have already 
offered to you my ideas in relation to them in conversation, and 
now will only briefly restate them. The medical staff is at pres- 
ent without responsibility ; and must, I conceive, remain so till 
its duties are brought to a centre. To introduce responsibility, 
it should be the duty of the surgeons of the Army, to make quar- 
terly return of the manner in which they have performed their 
duties. These returns ought among other particulars to contain 
a list of the sick, their disease, the prescriptions and issues of 
medical stores. It must be apparent that there ought to be a 
medical character of eminence, to report to the Head of Depart- 
ment on these returns. . . . The Judge Advocate general would be 
the adviser of the Department, in all cases touching martial laws ; 
and would in important trials be ordered to act as Judge advocate. 
. . . The Quarter master's Department may, I conceive, be ren- 
dered more simple and efficient. I would suggest the propriety 
of one quarter master general, with one deputy for each division 
and as many assistants as the same may require. No branch of 
the general staff is more important or difficult to be managed 
than the quarter master's ; none requires more eminently the con- 
trol of a single and responsible head. . . . 

On the 1 8th of February, Williams brought in a bill " to 
reduce the staff," which was based on these ideas of Calhoun, 
but there was one other suggestion of great moment made in 
the Senate. On the same day when the bill was presented, 
James Barbour of Virginia offered resolutions in regard to sub- 
stituting a cheaper and more effective mode of supplying the 
army by subjecting those undertaking the duty to military 
law, 15 and this was approved by the Senate. Later this pro- 

15 It will be remembered that while in the House Calhoun had sug- 
gested a change in the method of supplying the army; but there is noth- 
ing to show what system he wanted to adopt. Ante, p. 215. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 235 

posed amendment and another were referred back to the Com- 
mittee; and they again reported the bill, on March 20, with 
a section embodying Barbour's suggestion. The bill was 
finally passed by the Senate on March 26 and sent to the 
House. 

The " Autobiography " tells us that the scheme was de- 
nounced as wild and impracticable, and in the House (the de- 
bate in the Senate is hardly reported at all) there were at 
least two members who spoke against it, — Colston and 
Desha. The measure passed, however, on April 8th, with 
amendments of no great moment, which were agreed to in 
the Senate on the same day, and the bill was then approved 
by the President on April 14th. The prophets of evil were 
certainly wrong as to this measure, but it was beyond ques- 
tion a radical change. Probably, it was for this reason that 
the law was limited by its terms to the period of five years. 16 

The new statute thus passed introduced for the first time 
in our history the idea of unity of control in the staff. In 
several branches an officer of high grade was to be placed at 
the head of the particular department, — a man who should 
be responsible for its proper management and to whom all 
those employed in it should be directly subordinate. The old 
contract system, by which separate contracts were made in 
each command with a result similar to that in the Seminole 
case, was done away with and the modern subsistence depart- 
ment established, with purchase by a central bureau. A Com- 
missary-General, a Surgeon-General, and a Quartermaster 
General were by its terms all created for the first time. Large 
discretion as to the necessary regulations for all this new ma- 
chinery was left to the Secretary of War and the President. 

In carrying out the law great care was taken in the selec- 
tion of the various heads. Colonel Gibson was named Com- 
missary-General ; General Jesup, Quartermaster-General, and 
Dr. Joseph Lovell, Surgeon-General. Nor, by these selec- 
tions, was the work more than begun ; but the new officers, 

10 For the progress of this measure through Congress, see " Annals of 
Congress," Fifteenth Congress, First Session, 1817-18, Vol. I, pp. 119, 129, 
131, 160, 210, 211, 213, 268, 273, 289, 290, 293, 350: ibid., II, pp. 1568, 1687, 
1687, 1690, 1692. 




236 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

doubtless more than the Secretary himself, became at once 
actively engaged in organizing the bureaus under them. 
Jesup soon submitted to Calhoun a projet of the nature and 
functions of the office in his charge, and doubtless the other 
heads must have done the same thing. These were then pub- 
lished with the force of law by the Secretary and President, 
and the new departments entered on their history, destined to 
survive in the main the war with Mexico, the Civil War, the 
Spanish flurry and then merely to be modified by a further 
extension of the principle of unity of control. 17 

The main idea of the plan to form bureaus at Washington 
under the supreme direction of one head and in close touch 
with the Secretary of War, and thus secure energy and 
promptness, seems 1S to have been realized at the time of the 
law's enactment; and in a few years after its origin the sys- 
tem was extended to cover all branches of the staff, and ere 
long the head of the army 19 as well as the heads of the vari- 
ous bureaus were all centered in Washington, " thus bring- 
ing," so wrote Calhoun in 1822, 20 "the military administra- 
tion of the army, as well as its pecuniary, through the several 
subordinate branches, under the immediate inspection and con- 
trol of the Government. There is reason to believe that the 
arrangement will be highly useful." This was in close ac- 
cord with the view he had expressed 21 in 1820 that the true 
principle was that " every distinct branch of the staff should 
terminate in a chief, to be stationed, at least in peace, near 
the seat of Government, and to be made responsible for its 
condition." 

It is of course impossible to ascertain with accuracy from 
whose mind these really great improvements came, and doubt- 

17 " Calhoun Correspondence," pp. 137, 140, 141. Rodenhaugh and Has- 
kins's "Army of the United States," pp. 50-52, 74, 75, 87, 106, 113, 35L 
Hamersly's " Army Register," pp. 244, 329. 

18 " National Intelligencer," as quoted in Niles's " Register," Vol. XIV, 
p. 224 (May 23, 1818). 

19 John Quincy Adams ("Memoirs," Vol. VIII, p. 31) tells us that the 
Major-General of the army was fixed to reside at Washington by the 
General Orders of May 17, 1821, issued in pursuance of the Act of March 
2, 1821, for the reduction of the army. 

20 Report of Dec. 3, 1822, on the Condition of the Military Establish- 
ments and Fortifications, " Works," Vol. V, p. 123. 

21 Report of December 12, 1820, " Works," V, p. 85. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 237 

less the truth is that many men contributed to them. Cal- 
houn's lack of military training makes it highly unlikely that 
the whole credit can be his ; but there is every appearance that 
he had a far larger share in the matter than belonged to his 
mere functions as Secretary, 22 and there is at least no shadow 
of doubt but that he filled those functions to the full. Hear- 
ing and comparing, and then rejecting or adopting, the views 
of the technically educated men around him, he certainly was 
a chief factor in the selection of a good plan from the many 
opinions advanced and then in securing its legal sanction and 
in putting into form the thousand details necessary to apply 
it in practice. 

He wrote to a correspondent in 1823 " Our military organ- 
ization, and system of instruction, tho' not the same as either 
the French, or English, yet are based substantially on the 
same principles. What we have done is to modify and apply 
them to the circumstances in which we are placed." 23 And 
in later years he said 24 that his hand had drawn the Act of 
18 1 8 by which the change was first introduced, and also that 
which required that accounts, — instead of going as thereto- 
fore direct to the Treasury Department, without passing 
through the War Department, — should all first be endorsed 
by the head of the proper bureau and then be sent to the Chief 
of the War Department for final approval. 

One hint of the origin of the plan is to be found in a letter 
to Calhoun of later years. According to Virgil Maxcy, 25 
Major Van Deventer, the chief clerk in the War Office, was 
the first to suggest the idea, and Calhoun availed himself of 

22 John Quincy Adams's opinion of 1828 ("Diary/' Vol. VIII, pp. 446, 
447), that Calhoun "had no more share of mind in them [the improve- 
ments in military matters during- his Secretaryship] than I have in the 
Acts of Congress to which I affix my signature of approbation," may in 
my opinion be disregarded as due almost entirely to the bitterness of 
Adams's then feelings in general and particularly against Calhoun. 

23 " Correspondence," p. 212. 

24 " Autobiography," p. 25. See also speech in Senate in 1838 in 
answer to Clay: "Congressional Globe," Second Session, Twenty-fifth 
Congress, "Appendix," t8t, or Benton's "View," Vol. II, p. 112. "Con- 
gressional Globe," Thirtieth Congress, First Session, pp. 697, 698, 704-707. 
I am unable to find any Act of Congress containing regulations for_ the 
disposition of accounts, and presume that they were probably contained 
in some departmental order. 

25 Calhoun " Correspondence," pp. 791-93- 



238 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the suggestion and recommended it to Congress before the 
arrival of Generals Brown and Jesup in Washington. On the 
other hand, these two officers, both highly capable men, seem 
to have claimed a good deal of the credit for themselves. 

Brown, in particular, before a Congressional Committee 
in i827, 2G made light of the claims of the " civil gentlemen," 
and said that the " improvements suggested themselves to the 
officers of the army : they communicated them to Mr. Cal- 
houn, who perceived their importance and utility, and adopted 
and embodied them, and was the organ,' if I may so call it, 
of making them known. I have never understood, nor do I 
believe Mr. Calhoun claimed any great merit or applause for 
his agency in the business." Brown rather seems, however, 
later on in his testimony, to admit that Calhoun was entitled 
to much of the credit for the change in the Commissary De- 
partment, and he specially emphasizes the services in the whole 
matter of General John Williams, the chairman of the Senate 
Military Committee. 

General Jesup, in his testimony 27 in the same matter, was 
more liberal to Calhoun and said he believed that the then 
organization of the army was the result of one or more con- 
ferences between the Secretary of War and some members of 
the Senate Military Committee; but later on he seems at first 
blush to assert of the bill, which became a law: " I put [it] 
into form, at the request of Colonel Williams and Colonel 
Trimble, from memoranda furnished by them." But the ap- 
parent contradiction of Calhoun in this statement is made 
clear by the fact, — which becomes evident on more careful 
inspection, — that Jesup referred to the later act of 1821 for 
the reduction of the Army and not at all to the initial one of 
18 1 8. which inaugurated the changes. Of this law he ex- 
pressly said that he believed it was the result of the com- 
bined efforts of the Secretary of War and of Colonel Wil- 
liams of the Senate. 

Both Brown and Jesup admitted the high value of Cal- 

28 House Committee appointed by the House on December 29, 1826, 
on a letter of Vice President Calhoun asking for an investigation of his 
conduct while Secretary of War. House Report, No. 79, Nineteenth 
Congress, Second Session, pp. 164, 165. 

27 Ibid., pp. 161, 162. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 239 

houn's services in general as Secretary of War and united 
with Generals Macomb and Roberdeau and other army and 
department men in the testimonial to the retiring Secretary 
dated February 28, 1825, in which they said " the degree of 
perfection to which you have carried the several branches of 
this department is believed to be without parallel." 28 

Many reports of the Secretary of War show the good re- 
sults flowing from the changes. It has been said 29 that, on 
March 4, 18 17, there remained unsettled on the books of the 
auditors, accounts for past military expenditures to the amount 
of over forty-five million dollars. By the rigid system of ac- 
countability introduced under the new regulations, these ar- 
rearages were reduced by September 30, 1822, to $4,689,292, 
and by December, 1824, to $3,136,991, and this small balance 
consisted of losses and accounts that never could be settled. 30 

Since March 4, 181 7, the Department had expended nearly 
forty-one million dollars, of which all had been settled by Sep- 
tember 30, 1822, but six and a quarter millions of recent ex- 
penditures, the greater part of which was made up of accounts 
in the regular and due course of settlement. In the first three- 
quarters of 1822, there was drawn from the Treasury on ac- 
count of military expenses $1,930,464, of which the vast bulk 
had been already accounted for by the end of November, — 
and the Secretary wrote that " there is reasonable ground to 
believe that the disbursements of the year will be made with- 
out any loss to the Government." 31 This forecast was, more- 
over, borne out by the event; and in his report of December, 
1823, 32 he was able to state that of the total expenditures of 
his department for the preceding year amounting to over four 
and a half million, — this total included pensions, — " there has 
not been a single defalcation, nor the loss of a cent to the 
Government." A similar result for 1823 appears from the 
annual report of December, 1824. 33 

28 Niles's "Register," Vol. XXVIII, pp. 37, 38. 

29 Ante, p. 228. 

30 Reports of November, 1822, and December, 1824 ; " Works," Vol. 
V, nn. T2t, 137. " Autobiography," p. 26. 

;1 Report to the President, dated November 26, 1822, " Works," Vol. V, 
pp. 123-126. 

32 Report for 182.3, ibid., pp. 133, 134. 

33 Ibid., pp. 137-147. 



240 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

In 1822, in obedience to a resolution of the House, Cal- 
houn made a statement of the comparative cost of the army 
per man from 1818 to 1822. 34 After allowing for the dif- 
ference of prices, he divided the expenses into two classes — 
one made up of elements such as pay, fixed by law and not 
capable of being affected by administration, and the other con- 
sisting of supplies in general, which are highly capable of re- 
duction by good management. Then, taking the annual 
totals for the second class, he found that the average amount 
of these charges for each man had been in 1818, $299.64; in 
1819, $275.98; in 1820, $175.43; in 1821, $150.40, and in 
1822 (partly estimated), $144.16. 

If calculations of this nature are often quagmires of error 
and self deception, we have an entirely reliable comparison of 
the results in one department (the Paymaster's) made in later 
years by another hand. In 1839, Paymaster General Towson 
reported that from 1808 to 181 1, the average annual loss by 
defalcation under the system of regimental and battalion pay- 
masters amounted to 1.58 per centum of the amount dis- 
bursed and the annual average expenses for paying the army 
were 3.10 per centum. From the beginning of the war down 
to 1816, under the same system, these averages were defalca- 
tions 2.98 per centum and expenses 4.36 per centum. From 
the organization of the new plan, with a Paymaster General 
at the head, from 182 1 to 1825, the average defalcations were 
0.22 per centum and the expenses 2.13 per centum. From 
1825. when the system had been well established, there was 
not one dollar of loss by defalcation, and the expenses were 
I.33 per centum. 35 

One other army report of Calhoun's is worthy of careful 
examination and shows that he had already in 1820 a pretty 

34 Report to the House, dated March 5, 1823 ; " Works," Vol. V, pp. 
1 1 5-1 22. 

83 Rodenhaugh and Haskins's " Army of the United States," p. 106. Be- 
fore the House Committee of 1826-27 on the conduct of the Vice-Presi- 
dent ( Calhoun'), Towson testified that during the four or five years pre- 
ceding [822, the defalcations in the Paymaster's departments had been 
from $-'50,000 to $350,000, and since then only ahout $14,000. Report No. 
70. House of Representatives, Nineteenth Congress, Second Session, p. 
153- 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 241 

clear idea of the system used in modern days by which a com- 
paratively small peace establishment can easily and very rap- 
idly be enlarged in case of war into a far larger and yet highly 
efficient body of men. On December 12, 1820, in compliance 
with a resolution of the House of the prior session, he sug- 
gested a method for the reduction of the army from 10,000 
to 6,000 men, which was based on this design. The chief 
idea seems to have been to reduce the rank and file, while the 
corps of officers already existing was to be mainly preserved. 
After some remarks upon our peculiar situation and needs, he 
wrote in part as follows : 

The great and leading objects, then, of a military establish- 
ment in peace, ought to be to create and perpetuate military skill 
and experience; so that, at all times, the country may have at 
its command a body of officers, sufficiently numerous, and well 
instructed in every branch of duty, both of the line and staff; 
and the organization of the army ought to be such as to enable 
the Government, at the commencement of hostilities, to obtain 
a regular force, adequate to the emergencies of the country, 
properly organized and prepared for actual service. . . . 

To give such an organization, the leading principles in its 
formation ought to be, that, at the commencement of hostilities, 
there should be nothing either to new model or to create. The 
only difference, consequently, between the peace and war for- 
mation of the army, ought to be in the increased magnitude of 
the latter; and the only change in passing from the former to 
the latter should consist in giving to it the augmentation which 
will then be necessary. 

It is thus, and thus only, the dangerous transition from peace 
to war may be made without confusion or disorder ; and the 
weakness and danger, which otherwise would be inevitable, be 
avoided. Two consequences flow from this principle. First, 
the organization of the staff in a peace establishment, ought to 
be such, that every branch of it should be completely formed, 
with such extension as the number of troops and post occupied 
may render necessary ; and secondly, that the organization of 
the line ought, so far as practicable, to be such that, in passing 
from the peace to the war formation, the force may be suffi- 
ciently augmented without adding new regiments or battalions ; 



242 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

thus raising the war on the basis of the peace establishment, in- 
stead of creating a new army to be added to the old, as at the 
commencement of the late war. 

The Secretary then presented a plan with tables, to carry 
out the ideas advanced, by which he proposed to reduce the 
army to 6316 non-commissioned officers, musicians and pri- 
vates ; and this little army could be easily expanded in case of 
war to 19,035, officers and men. Very high authority 36 has 
said of this report and of Calhoun's plans for the army in 
general : " It will be perceived from the above that nearly 
sixty years ago one of our leading statesmen strongly urged 
the expansive organization which now prevails in every army 
of Europe. His plan, in brief, for the Adjutant General's, 
Quartermaster General's and Commissary's Departments con- 
sisted in having a permament chief for each, nearly all of the 
subordinate grades being filled by details from the line." But 
the same eminent authority adds that there were two defects 
certain to insure failure, the neglect to provide in the higher 
regimental grades the requisite numbers of officers to insure 
uniform operation, and the neglect to replace captains and 
lieutenants detailed from the line by the same number of su- 
pernumeraries. But for these defects and the omission to 
provide that in time of peace all officers detailed from the 
line should return periodically to their companies, " the plan 
of Mr. Calhoun, had it been adopted, would have given us all 
the advantages of the most modern staff organizations." 

Here, again, there is no direct evidence that I know of to 
show whose mind conceived the plan detailed, but the head 
of the department is certainly entitled to high credit for his 
suggestions. They were not, however, adopted by Congress, 
but a reduction made on quite another basis and which did not 
include the advantages presented by the Secretary's far-seeing 
plan. 

From the time when Calhoun took charge of his office, a 
new spirit was infused into the army. Officers found that 

38 "The Military Policy of the United States," by Major-General Emory 
Upton, pp. 150, 151. General Upton does not seem to have known of 
the Act of April'14, 1818. Probably, the statutes were in his day less 
easy to find than now. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 243 

appreciation was the lot of the deserving, and the admirable 
material then and always in our military service responded 
at once. Watching closely the affairs of his department and 
making occasional trips of inspection 37 Calhoun doubtless 
knew the characters of the commanding officers, and they must 
all have soon felt the complete control of the immediate head 
of their branch in Washington, while back of him was the 
strong hand of the Secretary ready in case of need to hold 
them rigidly to duty. 

Even the irascible and boundlessly popular Jackson was 
called to account 38 in 1819 for failures of officers under his 
command to carry out the new regulations, and the rebuke 
was made plain enough, if the hand administering it was a 
little gloved. After calling attention to the neglects, the Sec- 
retary wrote in a confidential letter: 

I am persuaded that no one is more deeply convinced of the 
truth of this proposition [the necessity of a rigid adherence to 
the laws and regulations] than yourself, and that it is only neces- 
sary to call your attention to the irregularities which I have 
stated to relieve me from the necessity of determining whether 
I shall permit the orders of the Government to be habitually 
neglected, or resort to the proper means of enforcing them. 
Should the alternative be presented, I will not hesitate to do my 
duty. 

The effort to unify the system and no longer to permit that 
as in the past different commands could not be exercised to- 
gether was very marked. As early as 18 18, General Scott 
was engaged by the Department in writing a manual of in- 
fantry tactics, 39 and in 1820, in pursuance of the directions 
of an Act of Congress of December 22, 18 19, Scott was also 
preparing, under the directions of the Secretary, a system of 
field service and police, and Judge Advocate Major Storrow 

3 ~ " Correspondence," pp. x?7, 178, 225. Tn the trip of 1820, he went 
as far as Boston and was much feted by Webster and others, Curtis's 
Webster, Vol. I, pp. 176, 177. That of 1824 was to the summit of the Alle- 
ghenies, and was descanted upon by the partisan Thomas Cooper in his 
well-known pamphlet " Consolidation " as a frolic. 

38 " Correspondence," pp. 160, 161. 

39 Calhoun " Correspondence," p. 140. 



244 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

a system of martial law. 40 In 182 1 the Secretary was urging 
the adoption for our service of General Lallemand's Treatise 
on Artillery. 41 In 1823, when it was found, — after the re- 
duction of the army in 1821, — that the artillery was dis- 
tributed in such small masses that it could not be properly ex- 
ercised, a School of Artillery was established at Fortress Mon- 
roe, 42 and in 1824, a board of officers was engaged in revis- 
ing the book of field exercise and military manoeuvres of in- 
fantry, which had been adopted at the close of the war, in 
order to adapt it to our then army system and to the use of 
militia. 43 

Military expeditions were, moreover, sent out in 1819, un- 
der the command of Colonels Atkinson and Leavenworth, to 
the upper waters of the Missouri and of the Mississippi, with 
a view to the control of the powerful Indian tribes and to pre- 
venting the domination of the fur trade by the British. 44 It 
is worthy of observation that the Secretary suggested to 
Colonel Atkinson the advisability of the use of steamboats, 
and it should also be noted that the idea of sending military 
expeditions to the wild regions of our northwestern frontier 
had been advanced by Monroe in 181 5. 45 

Among Calhoun's many reports are to be found numbers 
upon the subject of the Indians and the best way to manage 
that once so difficult branch of the army's duties. In 1819, 
an annual appropriation of $10,000 for their civilization was 
decided upon, and the Secretary devised regulations by which 
this sum might be expended by the hands of beneficial socie- 
ties. He reported upon this more than once, and in his regu- 
lations insisted that the societies to receive any share of the 
money should instruct the boys in agriculture and the girls 
in spinning, weaving and sewing. He had also a large share 
in carrying into effect the plan originated by Jefferson for 

40 Calhoun's Report of December 22, 1820, to the House, in American 
State Papers, Military Affairs, Vol. II, pp. 199, ct seq. 

41 " Correspondence," p. 192. 
« Ibid., p. 208. 

« " Works," Vol. V, P- 138. 

""Correspondence," pp. 134, 148, 155, 159, 166, 171, "Works," Vol. 
V, p. 62. 

46 Letter of February 22, 1815, to the Senate Military Committee: " Writ- 
ings," Vol. V, p. 325. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 245 

the removal of the Indians to the west of the Mississippi, and 
told Benton in the Senate in 1835 that the recommendation 
of Monroe to that effect was founded on " a report of which 
I was the author as Secretary of War." This was a matter 
of great moment in those days to the States east of the Mis- 
sissippi. 46 

The West Point Military Academy, which owed its origin 
to an Act of 1802 but was still a part of the Corps of Engi- 
neers, with the cadets attached exclusively to that branch of 
the service, was to a considerable extent reorganized and 
given a standing of its own, while the Chief of Engineers 
was removed to Washington in accordance with the general 
policy of centering there all the heads of the various branches 
of the army. Two reports of the Secretary, of 18 19 and 
1820, 47 bore on this subject, and in the earlier one he advo- 
cated — largely as he had done in the House of Representa- 
tives — one additional Military Academy, to be placed where 
it would accommodate the Southern and Western portions of 
the country. In both reports, he urged also as a means of 
further military education the establishment of " a school of 
application and practice." 

In other ways, too, he made good use of the materials 
within his reach, not only aiming to create an efficient military 
system but to turn it to good account, whenever possible. In- 
terested himself in scientific matters, 48 he secured from the 
army surgeons not only extensive reports upon the diseases 
they were called upon to treat, but had them furnished with 
thermometers, barometers and hygrometers, and required re- 
ports of the weather to be sent by them to the surgeon-general. 
These, or at least parts of them were later printed in a sup- 

46 See his Reports in " Works," Vol. V, pp. 68-72, 99-108. American 
State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. II, p. 541, &c. " Congressional De- 
bates," Vol. XI, Part I, 1834-35, p. 435. 

« " Works," Vol. V, pp. 54-57, 72-80. 

48 Calhoun was among the subscribers to " Silliman's Journal " in 1818, 
and in 1825 wrote Silliman agreeing to contribute one hundred dollars 
(and more, if necessary to make up the sum required) to some purpose 
having reference to Yale College. He said he looked upon Yale as " one 
of the lights of the nation, which under Providence, has mainly contributed 
to guide this people in the path of political, moral and religious duties," 
and he was fully convinced of the utility of the " Journal." Geo. P. Fish- 
er's " Life of Silliman," Vol. I, pp. 288, 325. 



246 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

plement to the " Army Meteorological Register " of 1840, and 
were moreover used by Dr. Samuel Forry in the preparation 
of his extensive work on " The Climate of the United States " 
and of the " Statistical Report of the Sickness and Mortality 
in the Army of the United States," which was compiled by 
him and published under the directions of the Surgeon Gen- 
eral. Forry recognized in his book on Climate how much was 
due in the matter to Calhoun's enlarged views, and we may 
safely assume that the Secretary's policy in this matter helped 
materially to lead up to the Weather Bureau of more modern 
days. 49 

It will be remembered that, while Calhoun was a member 
of the House, he had sought in 181 6-1 7 to lead up to a sys- 
tem of public improvements by the federal government, but 
had been met at the last minute by a quite unexpected veto 
of Madison, on the ground of lack of constitutional power. 50 
Even at that date the idea was not new, for quite an elaborate 
report had been made upon the subject by Secretary of the 
Treasury Gallatin in 1808, 51 in obedience to a resolution of the 
Senate, and Gallatin's recommendations were to a consider- 
able extent similar to those made by Calhoun some nine years 
later. 

Nor was Calhoun's voice the only one which had been heard 
upon the subject at the session of 1816-17. Clay had thanked 
him on the floor for bringing the bill before Congress and 
" for the able and luminous view which he had submitted " 
of the matter, and at this same session a committee had more- 
over been appointed on that part of the President's message 
relating to roads and canals. From this committee Thomas 
Wilson of Pennsylvania reported on February 9th, specifying 

49 The Library of Congress has a copy of the Statistical Report. The 
other two books are in the Library of the Weather Bureau. 

50 Ante, p. 210, ct scq. 

01 Annals of Congress, Tenth Congress, First Session, 1807-08, Vol. I, 
pp. 207, 332. Gallatin's Report is printed in American State Papers, 
Miscellaneous, Vol. I, pp. 724-921. It is a most elaborate paper, made up 
from many sources and touching advised and projected, as well as existing, 
improvements. John Quincy Adams claims (" Memoirs," Vol. VIII, p. 
444) that he was the first to urge internal improvements as a system 
to be adopted by Congress, by a resolution he offered in the Senate on 
February 23, 1807. See Annals of Congress, Ninth Congress, Second 
Session, 1806-7, pp. yj, 78. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 247 

the routes thought advisable in a way very similar to what 
Calhoun had already advocated on the floor and what we 
shall soon see that he urged again later in another capa- 
city. 52 

The rebuff of Madison's veto was a serious blow to the 
young representative, but his opportunity came again while 
Secretary of War, and this though his then chief was clearly 
on record against him. Monroe had indeed considered the 
subject and written to Madison about it early in his term of 
office, and in his very first message expressed a " settled con- 
viction . . . that Congress does not possess the power." He 
went on then to recommend that a constitutional amendment 
should be obtained, and again in .1819 wanted to make the 
same recommendation. 53 In 1822, also, a few years later 
than Calhoun's report about to be mentioned, Monroe perhaps 
showed his general adherence to this opinion by vetoing the 
bill for the repair of the Cumberland Road and for erecting 
and maintaining toll-gates upon it. 

On April 4, 1818, the House passed a resolution calling on 
the Secretary of War to report at the next session " a plan for 
the application of such means as are within the power of Con- 
gress, for the purpose of opening and constructing such roads 
and canals as may deserve and require the aid of Govern- 
ment, with a view to military operations in time of war," etc., 
etc. In reply Calhoun wrote a letter 54 to Speaker Clay in 
which he did not discuss at all the constitutional question, 
thinking it improper to do so under the resolution, but said 
that " the measures proposed must be considered as depending 
on the decision of that question." The report was of some 
length, with plans, and detailed the military roads and pub- 
lic highways already constructed by Congress or the States. 
The works it proposed for the United States Government to 
undertake were similar to those he had advocated in the House 
in 18 1 7, and which he again suggested in his last annual re- 

52 Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, 1816—17, 
pp. 866, 924-33. 

53 John Quincy Adams's " Memoirs," Vol. IV, pp. 462-64, 468-70: Schou- 
ler's "United States," Vol. IV, p. 248; "Monroe's Writings," Vol. VI, p. 
32. 

M " Works," Vol. V, pp. 40-54. 



248 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

port to the President, after an Act had passed Congress au- 
thorizing the necessary survey and plans. 

Before the letter to Clay was sent, however, a meeting of 
the Cabinet was held to consider the matter. Monroe thought 
it irregular of the House to call for a report direct to them 
from his subordinate and put to the cabinet the question 
whether it could be made consistently with his declaration in 
his message at the opening of the prior session of the opinion 
that Congress has not the constitutional power. The discus- 
sion developed the fact that the Houses of Congress had often 
asked for reports direct to them, and Calhoun readily agreed 
to omit certain portions of his draft containing intimations of 
a duty upon Congress to make internal improvements, which 
of course conflicted very strongly with Monroe's expressed 
opinions. The report was then sent in, but Adams thought 
it had been asked for in this way with the very object of em- 
barrassing the President and exciting divisions in his coun- 
cils. 55 

There was, however, so much attraction in the idea of 
splendid public improvements and they grew so popular, that 
Monroe finally yielded upon the subject, possibly carried 
away to some extent (as the partisan Cooper charged 
in his pamphlet "Consolidation") by the great influ- 
ence sure to flow from the large expenditures they would 
necessitate. In a few years the Act of April 30, 1824, 
became a law with the President's approval, and he was au- 
thorized " to cause the necessary surveys, plans and estimates 
to be made of the routes of such roads and canals as he may 
deem of national importance in a commercial or military point 
of view, or necessary to the transportation of the mails." This 
" Survey Bill," as it was called, was evidently a matter of 
great interest to the public, and the debates were extensively 
reproduced in the newspapers. It seems almost a direct car- 
rying out of the suggestions made by Calhoun 56 in his letter 
to Clay in 18 19, that a military survey of the country should 
be made under the engineers of the army, as a means of de- 
es " Memoirs," Vol. IV, pp. 217, 218. 
" " Works," Vol. V, pp. 48, 50. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 249 

ciding on the best system of highways to be constructed. 
The execution of the law fell to Calhoun's department and 
a board of engineers was constituted, consisting of General 
Bernard and Colonel Totten, of the engineer corps, and John 
L. Sullivan, a civil engineer. 57 Under their direction, a sur- 
vey was begun of such routes as the Secretary of War de- 
termined to be of national importance. This was late in Cal- 
houn's term, but he was enabled to get the plan under way, 
and in his last annual report of December, 1824, he went at 
length into the question of the most desirable routes. As 
this was his latest official notice of the subject and the plan 
had then taken positive shape, it will be well to go to it to 
ascertain his final views in regard to the routes most desirable 
to improve. He wrote: 

. . . The United States may be considered, in a geographical 
point of view, as consisting of three distinct parts ; of which the 
portion extending along the shores of the Atlantic, and back to 
the Allegheny mountains, constitutes one ; that lying on the lakes 
and the St. Lawrence, another; and that watered by the Missis- 
sippi — including its various branches, the other. These several 
portions are very distinctly marked by well-defined lines, and 
have naturally but little connection, particularly in a commercial 
point of view. It is only by artificial means of communication 
that this natural separation can be overcome; to effect which 
much has already been done. The great canal of New York 
firmly unites the country of the lakes with the Atlantic, through 
the channel of the North River; and the National Road from 
Cumberland to Wheeling, commenced under the administration 
of Mr. Jefferson, unites, but more imperfectly, the Western with 
the Atlantic States. But the complete union of these separate 
parts, which geographically constitute our country, can only be 
effected by the completion of the projected canal to the Ohio 
and Lake Erie, by means of which, the country lying on the 
lakes will be firmly united to that on the Western waters, and 
both with the Atlantic States, and the whole intimately connected 
with the centre. These considerations, of themselves, without 
taking into view others, fairly bring this great work within the 
provisions of the act directing the surveys; but when we extend 

" " Works," Vol. V, p. 140. 



250 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

our view, and consider the Ohio and the Mississippi, with their 
great branches, but as a prolongation of the canal, it must be ad- 
mitted to be, not only of national importance, but of the very 
highest national importance, in a commercial military and politi- 
cal point of view. Thus considered, it involves the completion 
of the improvements in the navigation of both these rivers, which 
has been commenced under the appropriations of the last session 
of Congress; and also canals around the falls of the Ohio at 
Louisville, and Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River; both of 
which, it is believed, can be executed at a moderate expense. 
With these improvements, the projected canal would not only 
unite the three great sections of the country together, as has 
been pointed out, but would also unite, in the most intimate 
manner, all of the States on the lakes and the Western waters 
among themselves, and give complete effect to whatever improve- 
ment may be made by those States individually. The advantages, 
in fact, from the completion of this single work, as proposed, 
would be so extended and ramified throughout these great di- 
visions of our country, already containing so large a portion 
of our population, and destined, in a few generations, to out- 
number the most populous States of Europe, as to leave in 
that quarter, no other work for the execution of the General 
Government, excepting only the extension of the Cumberland 
Road from Wheeling to St. Louis, which is also conceived to 
be of " national importance." 

The route which is deemed next in importance, in a national 
point of view, is the one extending through the entire tier of the 
Atlantic States, including those on the Gulf of Mexico. By ad- 
verting to the division of our country through which this route 
must pass, it will be seen that there is a striking difference in 
geographical features between the portions which extend north 
and south of the seat of Government, — including the Chesa- 
peake Bay, with its various arms, in the latter division. In the 
northern part of the division, all the great rivers terminate in 
deep and bold navigable estuaries, — while an opposite character 
distinguishes the mouths of the rivers in the other. This differ- 
ence gives greater advantage to improvement by canal in the 
northern, and less in the southern division. In the former, it is 
conceived to be of high national importance to unite its deep 
and capacious bays by a series of canals ; and the board was 
accordingly instructed to examine the routes for canals between 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 251 

the Delaware and the Raritan, — between Barnstable and Buz- 
zard's Bay, — and Boston Harbor and Narragansett Bay. The 
execution of the very important link in this line of communica- 
tion between the Delaware and the Chesapeake, having been al- 
ready commenced, was not comprehended in the order. These 
orders will be executed by the board before the termination of 
the season. The important results which would follow from 
the completion of this chain, in a commercial, military, and politi- 
cal point of view, are so striking that they need not be dwelt 
on. It would, at all times, — in peace and war, — afford a prompt, 
cheap and safe communication between all of the States north 
of the seat of Government, and greatly facilitate their com- 
munication with the centre of the Union. The States of New 
Hampshire and Maine, though lying beyond the point where 
these improvements would terminate, would not, on that ac- 
count, less participate in the advantages, as they are no less 
interested than Massachusetts herself, in avoiding the long 
and dangerous passage round Cape Cod, which would be ef- 
fected by the union of Barnstable with Buzzard's Bay. 

In the section lying south of this, none of these advantages 
of communication by canal exist. A line of inland navigation, it 
is true, extends along nearly the whole line of coast, which is sus- 
ceptible of improvement, and may be rendered highly service- 
able ; particularly in war, and on that account may be fairly 
considered of " national importance." The Dismal Swamp Canal, 
from Chesapeake Bay to Albemarle Sound, — which is nearly 
completed, constitutes a very important link in this navigation. 
But it is conceived that, for the southern division of our coun- 
try, the improvement which would best affect the views of Con- 
gress, would be a durable road, extending from the seat of Gov- 
ernment to New Orleans, through the Atlantic States ; and the 
board will, accordingly, receive instructions to examine the route 
as soon as the next season will permit. 

The completion of this work, and the line of canals to the 
north, would unite the several Atlantic States, — including those 
on the Gulf, in a strong bond of union, and connect the whole 
with the centre, — which would also be united, as has been 
shown, with those on the lakes and Western waters, by the 
improvements projected in that quarter. 

These three great works, then, — the canal to Ohio and Lake 
Erie, with the improvement of the navigation of the Ohio, Mis- 



252 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

sissippi, and the canal round the Muscle Shoals, — the series 
of canals connecting the bays north of the seat of Government — 
and a durable road extending from the seat of Government to 
New Orleans, uniting the whole of the Southern Atlantic States, 
are conceived to be the most important objects within the pro- 
visions of the act of the last session. . . , 58 

As a member of the President's advisory council, it is clear 
that Calhoun was highly useful. Regular in attendance, al- 
ways or often throwing light upon the subject under discus- 
sion and, though strongly inclined to believe his view right, 
yet by no means incapable of yielding it to that of some one 
else which seemed better, he was, — so we are told by one very 
capable of judging, when not blinded by passion, — specially 
remarkable for the capacity to see into a question very rapidly. 
He and Adams were, indeed, at this time close friends, 59 and 
the diarist's opinions may be accepted more safely than later, 
when his mind was distorted by jealousy and disappointment. 
The conflict between the ambitions of the two men had not yet 
driven them apart, and Adams was still as roseate as his strange 
puritan nature permitted with hope for a great political career. 
A very different color on this and other subjects is given to 
the diary after the utter breakdown of his presidency and the 
cold blight of hope consequent upon being turned out of public 
life in 1829. 

Some details of importance are given by Adams of Calhoun's 
opinions in the cabinet, though far fewer than a biographer 
would wish. To one of these, a quite unmerited importance 
was added in later years by the well-known quarrel of Jackson 
with Calhoun. When in 181 8 the administration learned that 
their Southern General had, without either leave or orders, 
suddenly taken it into his head to march upon Spanish terri- 
tory, capture a Spanish town and shoot two British subjects, 
it is little wonder that they were not only alarmed, but were 
indignant against their subordinate. 

The offence, for such it was, had special reference to Cal- 

" " Works," Vol. V, pp. 142-146. 

" J. Q. Adams's " Memoirs," Vol. VI, p. 267. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 253 

houn's department, and he at first suspected that the move- 
ment of the general had connection with an American land- 
speculation at St. Marks's. 60 Accordingly, it was quite nat- 
ural that at the early cabinet meetings upon the subject the 
Secretary of War was very decided in opinion against Jack- 
son. Adams, on the other hand, was the leading supporter 
of the general and thought his difficulties so great, owing 
either to the inability or unwillingness of the Spaniards to 
restrain their lawless classes, that he was justified in invading 
foreign territory in self-defense, while the two Englishmen 
had in effect made themselves outlaws. 

The discussion between Adams and Calhoun was for a time 
very animated, but Calhoun failed to convince his associates 
and in the end Adams's opinion was in the main acted on, ex- 
cept as to continuing to hold the captured territory. This 
conclusion seems to have been what Monroe had wanted from 
the start. The action of the American general was defended 
as necessary under the circumstances, while St. Mark's was 
handed over again to Spanish hands. Calhoun wrote in effect 
in later years that he was convinced by the discussions, and 
that the decision of the cabinet was unanimous ; but when his 
first impressions in the matter became known to Jackson some 
years later, the knowledge contributed largely to inflame the 
latter' s irascible temper, and thus had probably a very great 
influence in preventing Calhoun from attaining the position 
that was long the acme of his ambition. 61 

In regard to that assertion of our national determination, 
which has been known as the Monroe Doctrine and which is 
often curiously enough thought to be a clause of some inter- 
national code of law, Adams gives a little information as to 
the opinion advanced by Calhoun, while the matter was under 
discussion in the cabinet, though here again provokingly little. 
Thus, he tells us that the Secretary of War, and Monroe, too, 
were in his opinion unduly alarmed as to the intentions of the 
Holy Alliance, thinking that the sovereigns meant to restore 

80 J. Q. Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. IV, p. IK; Ibid., Vol. VIII, p. 332. 
61 Letter of May 29, 1830, to Jackson in " Works," Vol. VI, pp. 370-72. 
" Monroe's Works," Vol. VII, pp. 200-13, 225-27. 



254 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

her South American dominions to Spain, and were then likely 
to attack us as the most conspicuous example of successful 
popular rebellion. 

For these reasons, Calhoun wanted at once to take advantage 
of the opportunity offered by Canning's proposal to Rush, in 
order to detach Great Britain from the Alliance and hence 
favored giving our minister discretion to join in a declaration 
against interference by the united monarchs. In the repeated 
discussions of this vital question in the Cabinet, he took an 
active and leading part, not only in matters of substance but in 
such details as softening the too effusive expressions of re- 
publicanism contained in some of Adams's drafts, but it seems 
that the great motive power guiding him throughout the whole 
discussion was that distrust and fear which it has been already 
seen he had of the Holy Alliance. 62 

On the very first day in their lives on which Adams and 
Calhoun saw each other, they were both decidedly opposed to 
accepting some overtures from Clay, looking to an agreement 
as to the best mode of carrying out his plans for our recogni- 
tion of Buenos Ay res or Chili. Again, at another cabinet 
meeting not much later, they united in the wish to retain 
Amelia Island, and Adams writes that the newly arrived mem- 
ber urged his view " with great force and effect," adding 
further that he " thinks for himself, independently of all the 
rest, with sound judgment, quick discrimination, and keen 
observation. He supports his opinions, too, with powerful 
eloquence." 

In the course of the discussion of Adams's Florida nego- 
tiations, the Southerner's comprehension of the vital impor- 

62 " Memoirs of John Quincy Adams," Vol. VI, pp. 177, 185, 186, 194, 
195, 203, 206. At a much later date, in 1846, while opposing a flaming 
resolution of Allen upon the general suhject, Calhoun gave some details 
of the origin and scope of the Monroe Doctrine. He had no doubt that 
Adams was entitled to the credit of its paternity, but insisted that it had 
reference solely to a specific instance, the Holy Alliance. Adams himself 
had, Calhoun went on, made a broader declaration, but this had never come 
before the cabinet. Calhoun was of opinion that we should make no such 
general declaration as was proposed by Allen but meet each particular 
case, as it might arise, and he was evidently inclined to limit the scope 
of the doctrine in general. " Congressional Globe, Twenty-Ninth Con- 
gress, First Session," pp. 197, 198, 243-48; ibid., Thirtieth Congress, First 
Session, p. 590. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 255 

tance to us of the Mississippi River came out very plainly from 
the start: and we learn, too, that as early as 1822 he had " a 
most ardent desire that the island of Cuba should become a 
part of the United States." He was not then ready to face 
war with Great Britain for that purpose, but did want the 
Executive to make a confidential communication to Congress 
in regard to a proposal lately received in a roundabout way 
from leading citizens of the island for them to declare inde- 
pendence and ask admission to the American Union. Adams 
regarded this plan of Calhoun's as utterly impractical, and 
saw clearly that the whole subject would have become known 
to the world in a week, or even a day. 63 

The Missouri question burst into view as a flaming portent 
of evil early in 1819; and rarely has a single issue so clearly 
made or rather marked the fundamental difference between the 
sections of a united and apparently contented country. It 
was at first long discussed in the halls of Congress, before the 
Executive had any function in the matter, and we have only 
general indications of the views of members of the cabinet. 
On January 21, 1820, so we are told, Calhoun failed to attend 
a meeting of the President's council, having gone to the Sen- 
ate to hear William Pinkney's wonderful speech upon the 
subject. Adams, to whom we owe this information, does not 
tell us Calhoun's impression of the eloquent Marylander, but 
he himself and members of his family also heard portions of 
the speech and they were somewhat disappointed. Adams 
admitted, — as certainly any one reading to-day the printed 
speech must admit, — that " his language is good, his fluency 
without interruption or hesitation, his manner impressive," but 
adds the conclusion, which was of course due to his own feel- 
ings in the matter, that the argument was weak, " from the 
inherent weakness of his cause." 64 

A month later the same diligent recorder, to whom history 
is often so deeply indebted, tells us more of his colleague's 
views upon the general matter. On February 24, he called 
upon Calhoun at the War Office and the two so utterly diver- 

63 "Memoirs of John Quincy Adams," Vol. IV, pp. 28, 36, 47, 48, 51, 
266, 267 ; Vol. VI, pp. 70, 71. 
""Memoirs," Vol. IV, pp. 510-12. 



256 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

gent types of men had a long conversation upon the subject, 
which deeply interested Adams and led him, insensibly to 
himself, to detain the Southerner until at least an hour after 
the latter's dinner hour. 

Calhoun, we are told, did not think the question would pro- 
duce a dissolution of the Union, but added that, " if it should, 
the South would be from necessity compelled to form an 
alliance, offensive and defensive, with Great Britain," and 
admitted the justice of Adams's remark that this would be 
pretty much returning to the colonial state, insisting, however, 
that they would be forced to such a course. When Adams 
then asked whether he thought that if the North should find 
itself in this way " cut off from its natural outlet upon the 
ocean, it would fall back upon its rocks bound hand and foot, 
to starve, or whether it would not retain its powers of loco- 
motion to move southward by land," Calhoun replied that in 
that case " they would find it necessary to make their com- 
munities all military," and Adams pressed the conversation no 
further. We are told no more of Calhoun's opinion in this 
conversation, which led the diarist " into a momentous train 
of reflection." C5 

In March, 1820, the first Missouri struggle came to an end 
in Congress in the well-known Compromise, and the bill was 
sent to the President for approval. A meeting of all the 
cabinet was then at once called to secure their answers in writ- 
ing, to be deposited in the Department of State, 06 upon two 
questions: (1) Whether Congress had a constitutional right 
to prohibit slavery in a territory, and (2) whether the prohi- 
bition in the bill forever prohibiting slavery within certain 
limits was applicable only to Territories or could extend also 
to the States that might be formed therefrom. As to the first 

05 " Memoirs," Vol. IV, pp. 530, 531. 

66 These answers perhaps appear to have been so deposited, and it is 
clear that the intention was that they should be ; but, if they were all col- 
lected and filed, they have since been removed, and nothing now remains 
but the envelope in which they were once contained, Schouler's United 
States, III, p. 167. Calhoun was positive in 1848 that he had not given any 
written opinion, nor is there any strong evidence that he was wrong 
about this. Such matters are easily neglected. Unavailing search had at 
that time been made for the answers. " Congressional Globe," Thirtieth 
Congress, First Session, Appendix, pp. 1178-80. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 257 

question, it was unanimously agreed (so Adams tells us) that 
Congress have the power to prohibit slavery in the Territories, 
despite the fact that neither Crawford, Calhoun, nor Wirt, 
could find any express power to that effect and that Wirt 
declared himself very much against implied powers. We are 
then given some of the diarist's views of the contrasts between 
the Southerners' principles and actions on this question of im- 
plied powers, but they have no application to Calhoun, who 
was not as yet much troubled in mind by these " refinements." 

I have found no evidence that Calhoun ever questioned but 
that he had at this date been of opinion that Congress have 
the power to prohibit slavery in the territories, and in one 
instance, on the contrary, with an openness which is not often 
exhibited by public men, he volunteered as late as 1838 to say 
openly in the Senate that " he was not a member of Congress 
when that [the Missouri] Compromise was made ; but it is 
due to candor to state that his impressions were in its favor," 
and then added that he had since come to think otherwise. 67 

On the second question submitted by Monroe to his cabinet, 
there was a long and acrimonious discussion, chiefly between 
Crawford and Adams, but the discussion is of great impor- 
tance in a Life of Calhoun, for some of the New Englander's 
views cannot have failed to make a deep mark on the mind of 
a Southerner when he later came to realize the isolated position 
of his section. Adams began by expressing the opinion that 
the word " forever " would have application to a State as well 
as a Territory, and when Crawford denied this and added 
that even in such new States as had been admitted upon the 
express condition of the perpetual interdiction of slavery, an 
ordinary Act of their Legislature might sanction slavery, 
Adams expressed views which would have seemed very ultra to 
most Southerners. Indeed, they had greatly inflamed the South 
and excited their deep apprehension, when once already thought 
to have been expressed by Rufus King 08 in the Senate. 

07 Speech of January 12, 1838, on his resolutions on slavery and State 
rights submitted December 27, 1837; "Works," Vol. III. p. 185. 

68 It is not possible to-day to ascertain what King- did actually say in his 
speeches on the Missouri question. As outlined in Moore's "American 
Eloquence," IT, pp. 44-51. and again in his "Life and Correspondence," by 
Charles R. King, Vol. VI, Appendix IV, pp. 690-703 (see also his letter 



258 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Basing himself on the assertion in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence of the natural equality of all men and their inalien- 
able right to liberty, Adams drew the conclusion that the just 
powers of government, which are said in the Declaration to 
be derived from the consent of the governed, could not extend 
to justify making slaves of some. Such a power, he said, 
can never be derived from consent, and is therefore not a just 
power. And he added that this opinion, which Crawford said 
had been attributed to King, was undoubtedly held by King, 
as well as by himself, " was an opinion universal where there 
are no slaves," and was held by all those members of Congress 
who had voted for the restriction upon Missouri and many of 

of November 22, 1819, in the same volume, pp. 233-34), it contained little 
or nothing that is startling, and even the remarks ("Works," Vol. VI, p. 
696) as to what the judiciary might do in the matter, do not seem to go 
very far. But this evidence consists of little but notes of argument, and 
these may well have been greatly developed in the actual utterance. It 
seems plain that he must have said more, or Pinkney never could have 
spoken in his answer of King's " deadly speculations, which invoking the 
name of God to aid their faculties for mischief, strike at all establish- 
ments" (Benton's "Abridgement," Vol. VI, p. 436), and again (ibid., p. 
443) Mr. King " has told us as a proof of his great position, that man can- 
not enslave his fellow-man, in which is implied that all laws upholding 
slavery are nullities." King's letter above shows a desire on his part 
to avoid the admission of having expressed some opinions which had 
evidently been attributed to him, and asserts that he never assented to 
or encouraged any measure that would affect the security of property in 
slaves or tend to disturb the adjustment established by the constitution, 
and desired his remarks to be construed as having reference only to slav- 
ery in the territories. But if he really said no more than this, Pinkney's 
answer is incomprehensible, and it is clear enough that King's opinions at 
least, according to Adams's understanding of them, went much further. 
The Southern understanding: of what he had said is perhaps fairly summed 
vp in a letter from Washington, dated February 12, 1820, and printed in 
the Charleston " Courier " of February 20th. The writer charges that 
King, — not to be outdone by Clinton or his friends, two of the most 
conspicuous of whom had (so the letter-writer goes on) affirmed in the 
New York Legislature that slavery did not exist in the United States 
and that the Supreme Court of the United States would so decide, — 
contended that the Constitution of the United States had not sanctioned 
slavery but had only foreborne to interfere with it. The letter then goes 
on that King, " declaring with his peculiar emphasis that one man could 
not make a slave of another, that a plurality of individuals could not 
do so; and for the same reason communities, however organized, could 
not do it. that all laws or compacts imposing such a condition upon any 
human being were absolutely void, because contrary to the law of nature, 
which was the law of God, and above all human control . . . and he 
intimated, in language too distinct to be misunderstood, that it was not 
less the duty, than the right of this nation, to maintain those princi- 
ples." 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 259 

those who voted against it. Terrible words to be heard by a 
Southerner, an affectionate father of children, when once he 
realized what their application must mean to his home and to 
those dear to him! 

All the cabinet except Adams were of opinion that the word 
" forever " would apply only during the territorial state, but 
he then insisted that in his written answer he must give at 
length the reasons for holding his view. Calhoun thought it 
very undesirable to go into this matter in the answer and 
suggested to alter the second question so as to read whether 
the eighth section of the bill was consistent with the constitu- 
tion, to which Adams could answer with a simple affirmation 
and the other members could do the same, with the addition 
that they considered it applicable only to the territorial state. 
Adams says that he readily agreed to this, and it is evident 
that, after the long and excited difference with his colleagues, 
he soon came to realize that pride of opinion and his impa- 
tience of contradiction had led him to express ultra ideas such 
as he would have been very sorry to see in print or permit to 
be generally known. The theories he had advanced were 
indeed abstract, and he would not have dreamed of asking to 
apply them in practice. 

It is, however, strange to read the opinion expressed by 
Calhoun of what Adams had said. As reported to us, he 
seems to have had no thought of its serious nature to the 
South ; but to have considered the matter in the abstract en- 
tirely, even while trying, in a way hard to comprehend to- 
day, 69 to explain the Southern view of slavery. Adams re- 
cords : 

After this meeting [of the Cabinet] I walked home with Cal- 
houn who said that the principles which I had avowed were 
just and noble; but that in the Southern country, whenever they 
were mentioned they were always understood as applying only 
to white men. Domestic labor was confined to the blacks, and 
such was the prejudice, that if he, who was the most popular man 
in his district, were to have a white servant in his house, his 
character and reputation would be irretrievably ruined. 

fi9 The curious will find Calhoun's meaning much more clearly explained 
in his speech, in 1848, on the Oregon bill. " Works," Vol. IV, pp. 505, 506. 



260 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

I said that this confounding of the ideas of servitude and labor 
was one of the bad effects of slavery ; but he thought it attended 
with many excellent consequences. It did not apply to all kinds 
of labor — not, for example, to farming. He himself had often 
held the plough; so had his father. Manufacturing and me- 
chanical labor was not degrading. It was only manual labor — 
the proper work of slaves. No white person could descend to 
that. And it was the best guarantee to equality among the 
whites. It produced an unvarying level among them. It not 
only did not excite, but did not even admit of inequalities, by 
which one white man could domineer over another. 

I told Calhoun I could not see things in the same light. It 
is, in truth, all perverted sentiment — mistaking labor for slav- 
ery, and dominion for freedom. The discussion of this Mis- 
souri question has betrayed the secret of their souls. In the 
abstract they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim all 
participation in the introduction of it, and cast it all upon the 
shoulders of our old Grandam Britain. But when probed to the 
quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and 
vain glory in their condition of masterdom. They fancy them- 
selves more generous and noble-hearted than the plain freemen 
who labor for subsistence. They look down upon the simplicity 
of a Yankee's manners, because he has no habits of overbearing 
like theirs and cannot treat negroes like dogs. . . . 70 

When, in November of the same year 1820, a second Mis- 
souri struggle was evidently coming on, we learn from Adams 
that Calhoun was in great concern at its re-appearance. This 
came out in one of those confidences between the two men, 
which were at this time common enough. Adams had called 
upon him, and they discussed this matter, as they rode to- 
gether in Calhoun's carriage to the President's. On another 
of Adams's calls, too, some six months earlier, they rode 
together into the country to make a visit and conversed on 
many subjects. Calhoun was on this occasion in no cheerful 
mood, and I cannot but think that the views of public affairs 
he then expressed must have had their part some few years 
later in leading to his change of political view, though he 
did not at all at the time find the troubles he referred to 

70 "Memoirs of John Quincy Adams," Vol. V, pp. 5-1 1, 13. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 261 

exclusively in the South or attribute them to any attempt to 
isolate and exploit that section. Adams writes: 

We conversed of politics, past, present and future. Cal- 
houn's anticipations are gloomy. He says there has been within 
these two years an immense revolution of fortunes in every part 
of the Union; enormous numbers of persons utterly ruined; 
multitudes in deep distress ; and a general mass of disaffection 
to the Government, not concentrated in any particular direction, 
but ready to seize upon any event and looking out anywhere 
for a leader. The Missouri question and the debates on the 
tariff were merely incidental to this state of things. It was a 
vague but wide-spread discontent, caused by the disordered cir- 
cumstances of individuals, but resulting in an impression that 
there was something radically wrong in the administration of 
the Government. These observations are undoubtedly well- 
founded. 

Then Adams goes on to express the opinion that the troubles 
Calhoun referred to were due primarily to paper money and 
other forms of fictitious capital. 71 

Calhoun's position as Secretary of War was at no time a 
bed of roses and, as the years passed and he grew steadily more 
prominent and soon became a leading candidate for the presi- 
dency, the numbers of those struggling to pull him down 
rapidly increased. It seems indeed that as early as 181 9, 
before his presidential aspirations had taken any shape, there 
was a tendency among some in Congress to carp at his ad- 
ministration of the War Department, and from that date on to 
the end of his term of service, he was constantly pestered with 
prying inquiries in regard to every matter under his charge. 
The expenses of the Yellowstone Expedition, of the Indian 
Department, of the system of fortifications and of the War 
Department in general, were all called for in several instances 
nor did the matter by any means end with these rather broad 
questions of policy. On the contrary, all sorts of details were 
demanded as to the contracts, which had been entered into, as 
to the names and pay of all the persons employed in the Indian 
Department, and again as to the number of officers and mes- 

71 "Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. V, pp. 127, 128, 199. 



262 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

sengers in the War Office and whether they were all neces- 
sary. 72 

Of course, such inquiries are often perfectly proper, and 
they may be inspired by the highest motives of patriotism, 
but it is clear that these were in general of quite a different 
stamp. It is well known that there was long the most bitter 
partisan opposition to Calhoun, and as early as 1821, in spite 
of the general praise given his administration of the War 
Office, it was charged by a clique in Congress to be inefficient 
and extravagant. These attacks were believed by Adams 73 
to be instigated by William H. Crawford, and there can be 
little doubt that such was the case and that the controlling 
motive back of them was the desire to win that seductive 
American siren, the Presidency. 

Crawford was the focus of the hopes of the party or faction 
in question, known as Radicals. They existed especially in 
Georgia and some other Southern States, but were to be found 
also in New York and, in scattering numbers, elsewhere. 
Claiming, as did others, too, to be Simon-pure Democrats, — 
the direct and only heirs of Jefferson and the Republican party, 
— the Radicals were often strict constructionists to a high 
degree, were at about this time and for a few years later the 
State Rights party par excellence as well as always and most 
especially in favor of a high degree of economy and of limit- 
ing Governmental agencies to such an extent as Calhoun and 
many who had had any part in the War of 18 12 looked upon 
as ruinous. There can be little doubt, I think, that the catch- 
ing claim of economy constituted no little part of their stock 
in trade. Possibly the most pregnant hint as to their tenden- 
cies is to be found in the fact, the knowledge of which we owe 
to one of the band, 74 that they were at the time called " ruth- 
less radicals." 

72 Some of the answers to these inquiries are to be found in the Amer- 
ican State Papers. The following citations are merely samples, and many 
more could be found from the references in the Calendar of Calhoun 
Letters in Prof. Jameson's " Calhoun Correspondence," pp. 25-38 ; Amer- 
ican State Papers, Military Affairs, Vol. I, pp. 848-860, in February, 1819; 
ibid., Vol. II, pp. 48-51, 68-69, 368-375, 419. 420-422; ibid., Indian Affairs, 
Vol. II, pp. 266, 267, 271-74, 364-371, 826-833; ibid., Miscellaneous, Vol. II, 
p. 983. 

" " Memoirs," Vol. V, pp. 314-316, 326; Vol. VI, p. 8. .__,„_ 
74 Gov. Floyd, in his remarks in Congress (as quoted in Niles s Reg- 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 265 

To these hints can fortunately be added a fairly clear out- 
line of the struggle of the day from the pen of a very capable 
politician, who was concerned in it. James Buchanan wrote 
in his autobiography : 

When I first entered the House of Representatives [in Decem- 
ber, 1821], there was a party in it which was called the Radical 
party, in favor of cutting down the expenses of the Government 
to the lowest possible standard without as I supposed suffi- 
ciently considering the real necessities of the country. Its lead- 
ers were the late Governor Floyd of Virginia, Mr. Williams of 
North Carolina, General Cocke of Tennessee, and others. These 
gentlemen were all the friends of Mr. Crawford, and were pe- 
culiarly hostile to Mr. Calhoun, whose alleged extravagance as 
Secretary of War they denounced in no measured terms. I did 
not perceive in the House the slightest trace of the old distinc- 
tion between Federal and Democrat. So far from it that several 
of them elected as federalists held to a considerable extent Demo- 
cratic principles ; while many of those who had been called 
Democrats held high toned federal principles. The names were 
still continued ; but the things signified by those names no longer 
existed. Mr. Monroe's administration whilst it was Democratic 
in name, generally pursued the federal policy. 

Buchanan then goes on to detail an instance of Calhoun's 
troubles. For two or three years Congress had regularly ap- 
propriated $200,000 or more for the Indian Department, and 
a system had grown up which called for about this sum. On 
the very last day, however, of the session ending March 3, 
182 1, under some impulse of economy the amount had been 
largely reduced and the Secretary suddenly — according to 
Buchanan, without " notice of any intention to change this 
settled policy " — found himself with only $100,000 for the 
purposes of that department. Previous to this time, Buchanan 
goes on, the impulse had been given under the old system, and 
it could not be stopped within a year. The consequence was 
that, though Calhoun did his best after the passage of the 
bill to curtail the expenses, they none the less exceeded the 
appropriation by $70,000, and he was obliged to ask for an 

ister," Vol. XXXI, p. 396) upon the report of the committee on the Mix 
contract. 



20 4 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUX 

appropriation to meet this deficiency and " was denounced as 
extravagant and a contemner of the law." After a struggle, 
in which Buchanan aided the Secretary, the appropriation was 
passed. 75 

There is, however, at the same time evidence that Calhoun 
became occasionally very restless under such methods of Con- 
gress and in some instances even went on and carried his wishes 
through, despite their action. Thus, in 1S22, when the ap- 
propriation for a portion of the defences of New Orleans was 
cut off, work on the Dauphin Island fortifications had none 
the less been carried on and a contract entered into which 
soon became a source of some anxiety to Calhoun and the 
Administration. Adams wrote in regard to these works : 
"■ Congress have refused appropriations for continuing them, 
and large advances have been made to the contractors, which 
must now be recovered back from them." The method of 
doing this was a subject of some consideration, and Adams 
thought that " Calhoun's object is to escape the investigation of 
the contract by Congress. - ' Xor need we wonder at this wish 
of the Secretary in view of the 6th section of the Act of May 
i, 1S20. which distinctly provided that no contract should be 
entered into except in pursuance of a law and an appropria- 
tion. 76 

Adams thought, too, that Calhoun's allowances of contin- 
gent extra emoluments to officers of the army were based on a 
very questionable construction of the law. and they were much 
criticised by the opposition. He himself continued the prac- 
tice during his presidency, however, on the ground of its being 
a settled construction and perhaps in order to avoid unpopu- 
larity with army officers ; but Jackson in the course of his " re- 
forms " at once fell upon this practice and stopped it. 77 

Calhoun had also a clash with Congress and carried through 
his own wishes in regard to the army regulations which had 
been drawn up by Scott at the Secretary's instance. These 

75 Moore's " Works of James Buchanan," " Autobiographical Sketch," 
Vol. XII, pp. 300. 

T * Ad:. rs," Vol. V. pp. ^42-^43; Peters's " U. S. Statutes at 

Laree," Vol. III. p. ;68. 

T - Adams's " Memoirs," Vol. VIII, p. 151. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 265 

had been established in 1821 by a clause of the Act of March 
2 of that year, but when this clause was for some reason later 
repealed by Congress, Calhoun simply had them continued by 
an Executive order and the House was then upon inquiry 
informed of this action of the President and told that " the 
said regulations are therefore continued in force by his au- 
thority in all cases where they do not conflict with positive 
legislation." It would be difficult to discover the hidden mo- 
tives lying back of this dispute. 78 

The constant efforts to reduce the army were probably 
among the most distasteful of these measures of economy, so 
far as Calhoun was concerned. They also were doubtless 
largely partisan in origin, but another motive back of them 
was of course the unavoidable distrust of an army in a democ- 
racy. This feeling came down to the then rulers of public 
affairs from the long history of our race, and John Quincy 
Adams wrote 79 in marked approval of the very reduction of 
182 1, which was made so much in opposition to the wishes of 
the Secretary of War. It is worthy of mention, too, as show- 
ing that the same charges were made then as now, or perhaps 
that the same means were employed in that day as are in our 
own time, in order to secure liberal appropriations for arma- 
ment, that alarms of possible wars were alleged to be used 
for this purpose in i82O. S0 

Calhoun was, beyond doubt, from the beginning opposed to 
reducing the army. sl In a report to the House under date of 
December 11, 1818, in answer to a resolution calling: for in- 
formation as to what reduction might be safely made, the 
whole argument showed most clearly his opposition to any such 
action, and he stated that " the act of the last session [Act of 
April 14, 1818], it is believed, has made all the reduction 
which ought to be attempted." Doubtless, this same belief 
was often expressed in conversation, too, with all the energy 

78 American State Paper?, Military Affairs, Vol. II, p. 623. 

79 "Memoirs." Vol. VII, pp. 446, 447. Possibly thi? judgment does not 
represent Adams's opinion with accuracy. It was written under the sting 
of great bitterness against Calhoun. 

80 John Quincv Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. V, pp. 17, 34. 
" Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 115. For Calhoun's Report, see" "Works," Vol. V, 
PP- 25, 30. 



266 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

and strange persuasiveness which belonged to Calhoun, but 
the contrary feeling was too prevalent to be long curbed. 

Early in the session of 1819-20 the House called for a re- 
port on the strength of the army, which was sent in on Decem- 
ber 31. Later in the same session a resolution was submitted 
by Clay calling for a plan to reduce the army to 6000, and 
this was adopted on May nth, 1820. It was in reply to this 
resolution, and in an effort to modify its possible ill effects, 
that Calhoun sent in at the next session his Report of Decem- 
ber 12, 1820, already referred to, containing a plan for a small 
army capable of being rapidly augmented. The House did 
not, as has been seen, adopt the Secretary's views, and on 
March 2, 182 1, 82 an act was passed reducing the military 
peace establishment to 6183 men and taking little note of the 
plan suggested. 

Calhoun seems to have continued to dread still further re- 
duction, and wrote Joel Poinsett on July 3 of the same year 
urging him to remain in Congress and expressing his fear 
that at the coming session " the temper exhibited by so many 
members of the House of Representatives at the last session 
to prostrate the whole of our establishments, will again re- 
appear." In 1824, too, in a letter of June 8 to Henry A. S. 
Dearborn, he pointedly expressed his disapproval of those poli- 
ticians who had struggled to nullify his efforts in favor of 
preparation and once more bore upon the dangers to us from 
the Holy Alliance. 

One of the attacks made upon Calhoun must be gone into 
more at length. On July 25, 1818, some seven or eight months 
after he took charge of the War Department and shortly after 
his return from a visit to the South, but before his reforms 
were well under way, a contract was made by the Engineer 
Department with one Elijah Mix for the delivery of a large 
quantity of stone at the Rip-Raps, in the lower part of Chesa- 
peake Bay. It was to be used toward the erection of a fort, — 
which was intended to be called Fort Calhoun, — at this place 
and was a part of the great system or fortifications then plan- 

82 This is the law of which General Jesup said: "I put (it) into form, 
at the request of Colonel Williams and Colonel Trimble, from memoranda 
furnished by them." Ante, pp. 238, 241, 242. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 267 

ning. Mix in some way managed to carry through his con- 
tract, but there was a deal of trouble with him, and he was a 
thoroughly unreliable character. 

In giving out the contract, the loose methods long prevalent 
had been used by the Engineers, though other army expendi- 
tures at about the same time were far more carefully man- 
aged. There was no advertisement of the Rip-Rap contract, 
and the chief dealers in stone were merely informed of the 
matter and asked to bid. Moreover, army officers made per- 
sonal investigations in advance as to what would be a fair 
charge for the service required. The testimony was clear that 
this was and long had been the custom at that day and that 
public advertisements were not usually made, when the field 
of operations was near at hand and personal visitations could 
fairly well cover it. This was the case, too, as to other de- 
partments than the army. 

One very evil custom of our administration at that time 
came out in this case. Officers and employes in the various 
departments were often interested in contracts and even held 
them themselves and would then at times force contractors to 
take their " due-bills " in place of money and thus secure 
credit at the Treasury for so much paid. 83 There was nothing 
so bad as this in the Rip-Rap contract, but the following did 
occur : Major Van Deventer, the Chief Clerk, was a brother- 
in-law of Elijah Mix, and when the latter soon found himself 
in serious straits to do what is nowadays called " finance " the 
matter, Van Deventer came somehow to assume a liability to 
protect others against Mix's failure. As is usually the case, 
the obligations thus assumed grew by what they fed on, and 
the guarantor found ere long that he might be liable for a 
sum over $5500 and more than everything he owned in the 
world. 

Under the pinch of this trouble, he sought means to protect 
himself, but Mix was practically insolvent and there was 
probably but one way, — the assignment by Mix of a portion 
of his rights in the contract. The evidence is perfectly clear 

83 Testimony of General Jesup before the Committee on the conduct of 
the Vice-President. House Report No. 79, Nineteenth Congress, Second 
Session, pp. 157, 158. 



268 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

that Van Deventer had originally no interest whatsoever in the 
matter and was absolutely without influence as to giving out 
the contract — it was indeed entirely in the hands of the 
Engineers with whom he had no power or weight. But, as 
his danger grew more imminent, he spoke to Calhoun about 
the matter and asked whether it would be improper for him 
to invest money in the contract and was told in reply that it 
would not be illegal, as there was no law to prohibit it, but 
that it might expose him (Van Deventer) to improper in- 
sinuations and would therefore be injurious. 

In spite of this good advice from his chief, the subordinate 
did take some sort of transfer of one-quarter of Mix's interest 
as security for his responsibility at about the time in 1818 
when he first incurred the risk, and in April of 1819 he took 
a formal assignment of one-half interest, apparently paying 
something therefor. All this was done without the knowledge 
of the Secretary, and when the matter reached his ears he told 
Van Deventer that, if it became necessary to make a decision 
in the department in favor of the assigned share, the chief 
clerk's connection with the office would be at once terminated. 

Mix's contract seems to have been for some time looked 
upon as a losing one, but in the end of 18 19 and beginning of 
1820 changes in prices rendered it a much more hopeful ven- 
ture. After this, Van Deventer having succeeded in protect- 
ing himself from loss and feeling the delicacy of his situation, 
sold out all his interest, in part to Mix and in part to his and 
Mix's father-in-law Cooper, expecting when the matter was 
fully settled to realize about three or four thousand dollars. 

But the trouble was not yet over, for some dispute arose 
between Mix and others as to who was entitled to certain 
payments from the War Office, and Calhoun was called upon 
to make a decision upon this question. As the point was of 
vital interest to the share Van Deventer had assigned to Cooper 
and indirectly to Van Deventer himself, — who at that time 
had not been fully paid for what he had sold, — Calhoun told 
his chief clerk that, if the decision had to be made, the latter's 
removal from office would be a necessary result. Time for 
the parties to settle their differences amicably was, however, 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 269 

allowed, and Van Deventer went to New York near the end of 
March, 1821, to see Mix and endeavor to obviate this trouble. 
He wrote Mix of his coming and added that upon the latter's 
conduct in the matter would " depend whether or no I shall 
return to my functions in this department. It has finally 
come to that unfortunate result. You can stay the evil or 
complete the ruin." 

As a result of this visit, some adjustment was made, the 
need of a decision by Calhoun was removed, and Van Deven- 
ter remained in his office. But in some way Dame Rumor 
got hold of the matter and it became a subject of discussion 
in the House of Representatives on April 22, 1821, when a 
committee of investigation was appointed. They reported the 
facts about as above, expressed the opinion that no contract 
should be given out but upon public advertisement and then 
concluded that this particular one " was not formed in the 
manner which the law prescribes," and recommended a reso- 
lution " that further appropriations, to be expended under the 
contract made by the engineer department with Elijah Mix, 
ought not to be made." 

The only suspicion of impropriety in the matter down to this 
date, so far as the Government was concerned, attached to 
Van Deventer, and his conduct seems to have been the result 
of imprudence under very trying circumstances. But at the 
same time the report did reflect strongly upon the general man- 
agement of the War Department by Calhoun and was full of 
innuendoes of inefficiency ; and the resolution recommended, 
if passed, would have been the strongest condemnation. The 
House, however, did not take the same view of the matter 
as did the committee, and an appropriation in continuance of 
the work was finally carried and became a law. In the House, 
it passed by a large majority, and that branch refused to agree 
to an amendment of the Senate that the appropriation should 
not be considered as an affirmation of the contract with Mix. 
The Senate then receded. 

Such involved contests, however, especially when compli- 
cated with impropriety on some one's part, are hard to put to 
rest, and this particular one burst its cerements and arose once 



270 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

more from the grave, with far uglier aspect, some four to five 
years later when Calhoun had been Vice-President for nearly 
two years. He had, while at the head of the War Office, 
dismissed a paymaster, Major Satterlee Clark, for not settling 
his accounts; and Clark later wrote a series of letters under 
assumed names to New York papers, abusing Calhoun in round 
terms. Mix, seeing these letters and thinking that Calhoun 
had been very hard on him in the Rip-Rap contract, wrote to 
Clark on November i, 1825, saying that " if any information 
is wanted on the subject of Mr. Calhoun's infidelity, ... I 
have written letters of Van De venter's which most positively 
mention that he [Calhoun] was engaged, and received some 
portion of the contract." Small wonder that a person belong- 
ing to " the editorial profession " told Clark that this letter, 
if published, " would make a devil of a noise." But strangely 
enough this unenterprising editor allowed his opportunity to 
slip away, and the letter was not at once made public. 

In the end of 1826, however, Calhoun's successor, James 
Barbour, was about to award a contract in an entirely new 
matter to Mix, who was the lowest bidder. Clark, who had 
carefully preserved Mix's letter and taken a copy of it, came 
to Washington about this time and met Mix's chief competitor. 
As a result of their manceuvers and of the exhibition of the 
precious letter, not only did Mix fail to get the hoped-for 
contract (Barbour saying that the charge against Calhoun 
was " a foul calamny," and that Mix would probably charge 
him also with " going snacks ") but Mix's letter to Clark was 
published in full in an Alexandria paper on December 28, 
with editorial comments. There was at once, as had been 
predicted by another editor, " the devil of a noise," and the 
intended fort came soon to be known to the public as " Castle 
Calhoun." 

The day after the publication, the Vice-President wrote to 
the House of Representatives asking that it should, as " grand 
inquest of the nation," investigate this charge; and also wrote 
to the Senate informing it of this action on his part, adding 
that " a sense of propriety forbids me from resuming my sta- 
tion till the House has disposed of the subject." The House 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 271 

at once appointed a committee of seven, which examined a 
number of witnesses and reported unanimously on February 
13 that "there are no facts which will authorize the belief, 
or even suspicion, that the Vice-President was ever interested, 
or that he participated, directly or indirectly, in the profits 
of any contract with the government through the department of 
war " at any time. 

The whole proceedings, however, were far from satisfac- 
tory to either Calhoun or his friend McDuffie, who had at- 
tended the meetings in his interest. Calhoun complains that 
the committee was composed " with the exception of two, of 
hostile materials," and that they spun out their sittings to an 
unseemly length on other matters than that which they were 
appointed to investigate. The report contained also numbers 
of hints as to careless and inefficient management. In the 
investigation of 1822, the committee had found that one Jen- 
nings owned from the start a quarter interest in the contract, 
but this had now come to be an entirely vague hint as to some 
mysterious secret partner, whose identity could not be ascer- 
tained. 

The committee had, moreover, intended to close the testi- 
mony some two weeks sooner, without having examined 
several high officers of the army, but this was prevented by a 
protest from McDuffie. General Brown and others were 
then called and testified strongly, if in rather general terms, 
as to the improvements in administration brought about during 
Calhoun's service and partly at least by him. Mix fared badly 
on all hands and was reported to be absolutely unworthy of 
belief and to have fraudulently altered and mutilated letters 
and other papers. 

This subject has taken some space, but was of vital interest 
to Calhoun at one time, though now little but an impediment 
that had to be cleared away. Some friends thought at the 
time that the Vice-President's action in calling for an investi- 
gation was unnecessary, because of the degraded character of 
his accusers ; but his Presidential aspirations probably made 
him see ahead more clearly than did they, and they were later 
satisfied that he had been right in thinking that otherwise at 



272 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

some time in the future, when Mix's character was forgotten, 
the charges and insinuations would have been generally ac- 
cepted and have ruined him. 

On February 14, the day after the committee had made its 
report, Calhoun resumed his seat as presiding officer and the 
incident was ended as to him for all time ; but Van Deventer 
was at once dismissed from his office by Barbour. Nor did the 
matter go off without one of those alarms of a duel, which 
were so common in the days of artificial and often fantastic 
honor. McDuffie fell into a wordy wrangle by correspondence 
with General Thomas Metcalfe, who had been a member of the 
committee of 1822, and the lie circumstantial, or at least with 
an " if," was passed on both sides. The result was that Mc- 
Duffie challenged Metcalfe, but the latter chose rifles as the 
weapons, at a distance of ninety feet. 

Some correspondence then ensued between the seconds, but 
Major James Hamilton, Jr., objected that McDuffie was quite 
disabled from handling a rifle by wounds received in a prior 
duel, and then the other second replied that Metcalfe had 
absolutely no knowledge of a pistol and had never fired one in 
his life. The subject was discussed for a time between the 
seconds, and doubtless the extent of the challenged party's 
right to choose weapons was elaborately debated by the whole 
guild of duellists, but neither side would yield and the intended 
meeting was never held. 84 

A few words must be said here of the tariff, for the subject 
was destined in a few years to become of vital moment not 
only to Calhoun but to the country as well. During Monroe's 
presidency, it was several times under discussion. The Act 
of 181 6 had provided for reductions in some of the rates in 
18 19, but in 181 8 this term was extended to 1826 and the rates 
on unmanufactured iron were increased. At the next session 

84 The proceedings in regard to the two investigations growing out 
of the Rip-Rap contract are pretty extensively given in Niles's " Register," 
Vol. XXII, pp. 251-263, 270-282: ibid., Vol. XXXI, pp. 292, 293, 300, 302, 
305. 304-407: Utta., Vol. XXXII, pp. 1-8. The complete report of the 
earlier committee (of 1822) is to be found in American State Papers, 
Military Affairs, Vol. TT, pp. 431-439. The official report of the second 
committee (1826-27) is Report No. 79. House of Representatives, Nine- 
teenth Congress, Second Session. See " Calhoun Correspondence," pp. 
239-41, 79i- 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 273 

(December, 18 19), the usual House Committee on Commerce 
and Manufactures was divided and a special standing Com- 
mittee on Manufactures secured, of which Baldwin of Penn- 
sylvania was made chairman, and at that same session his bill 
for an increase barely failed by one vote in the Senate, after 
having passed the House. It is to be noted that the South, 
a majority of whose members had, it has been shown, opposed 
even the Act of 181 6, was overwhelmingly opposed to the bill 
of 1820: of the 55 members of the House from that section, 
only 3 voted in its favor, while 40 voted against it and there 
were 12 not voting. 

The subject continued to be agitated, chiefly in the Middle 
and Western States, and at length in his annual messages of 
December 1822 and 1823 Monroe was induced to recommend 
additional encouragement. This was, we are told, 85 against 
the advice of Calhoun, who was by that time evidently in 
accord with the general view of his section on the subject. 
He always thought 8fi that injustice had been done to the iron 
men of Pennsylvania by the Act of 18 16, and I know of no 
proof as to his opinion in regard to the measure of 18 18 or the 
attempted increase of 1820; but as early as 1821 he had evi- 
dently become restless at the growing hunger for ever higher 
rates and probably quite conscious of the South's tendency in 
the other direction. In March of that year, when Monroe's 
second inaugural was read in advance to the cabinet, " there 
were expressions," so Adams writes, 87 " favorable to the 
manufacturing interests, to which Mr'. Calhoun made some 
objections, and which were slightly modified." 

It may doubtless be accepted therefore that Calhoun was by 
that time already falling into accord with Southern opinion 
upon the general subject, and though there seems to be no 
further positive proof, we may safely assume that his early 
biographer is right in saying that he was opposed to the Act 
of 1824, which made a considerable increase in the rates in 
general. This law and the other efforts of the period were 

85 Jenkins's "Life," p. 150. 

S6 Ibid., and see Calhoun's speech of February 15 and 16, 1833, in the 
Senate on the Force Bill, " Works," Vol. II, p. 206. 
•» " Memoirs," Vol. V, p. 309. 



274 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

led to by the depression of 1819, the changes incident to the 
end of the Napoleonic wars, further English corn-laws of 
about that date and the great changes taking place in our 
own economic growth. 

One other fact in the matter must be emphasized here. So 
strong and wide-spread was the Southern opposition to the 
" American system " that on the final vote upon the tariff bill 
of 1824, 88 out of the 56 members of the House from the seven 
contiguous States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, but one 
single member voted Aye, while 54 voted Nay, and there was 
one not voting. This fact is vital to be remembered in regard 
to the struggle between the North and South, then near at 
hand, and it will be found that a similar result appeared in each 
one of the great tariff votes down to the Compromise Measure 
of 1833. No one can possibly comprehend the state of feel- 
ing throughout the South, unless he will carefully bear in mind 
this remarkable unanimity. 

The politics of South Carolina were of course during these 
years and ever after of vital moment to Calhoun, and there is 
reason to suppose that from an early date he had a powerful 
hand in the management of the State. Judge William Smith 
was also a potent factor and by no means friendly to Calhoun. 
Twenty years the senior, Smith had been president of the 
South Carolina Senate at the time when Calhoun was in the 
lower house, and was elected to a vacancy in the United States 
Senate in 18 16. In this capacity, he voted against Calhoun's 
bonus bill — looking to a system of public improvements by the 
federal government — which the younger man had introduced 
and largely made his own. Probably, Smith looked upon Cal- 

88 While this hill was under discussion in the House, Joel R. Poinsett 
wrote from Washington on Fehrnary 26, 1824, to Judge Hopkinson, hoping 
that delays might defeat it, and adding that, if it should pass an anti-tariff 
candidate would carry all the Southern States, and that the reaction from 
it " will be certain and sudden and the opposition to it will rise on its 
ruin. ... I do not know in what light you view it, but I would sooner 
vote for a war with the holy alliance than vote for this bill. I believe the 
operation of this law, if it becomes one, will be more injurious to the 
character of the people, the prosperity of the country and the durability 
of the Union, than a long expensive and bloody war." Letter in the Hop- 
kinson Collection in possession of Edward Hopkinson, Esq., of Philadelphia. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 275 

houn as a mere stripling and he was of course far from pleased 
to see the immense power which had fallen so rapidly into the 
lap of his youthful rival. There was not room in the politics 
of South Carolina for these two men. 

Smith had served for a number of years on the State 
bench, but it may be surmised that he always hankered after 
the din and struggle of politics. Of unknown origin and at 
one time of intemperate habits, he was reformed by his wife 
and was beyond doubt a most dangerous enemy. A rugged, 
determined, character, a bitter hater, not knowing what defeat 
means, he continued for years his struggle with Calhoun and 
only finally, when the latter had completely triumphed, re- 
moved to Alabama to live far away from the influence of his 
successful rival. 89 

If Calhoun's views changed, no one can doubt that Smith 
always changed, too, at about the same time, possibly even 
in order that he might be able to continue the struggle. He 
belonged at the time with which we are now concerned to the 
" Radicals " in South Carolina, who, it has been already said, 
were closely related to the party of the same name in Georgia 
and were generally supporters of Crawford for the Presi- 
dency, as well as of ultra State Rights tendencies. 90 In 1822, 
when Smith's term in the Senate was about to expire, Craw- 
ford wrote to a friend : " great exertions will be made by the 
friends of Mr. Calhoun to prevent the election of Judge Smith 
in South Carolina, but I presume without effect." 91 

The eminent Georgian was in part right, and no doubt Cal- 
houn left no stone unturned in the effort to defeat Smith. He 
wrote to his brother-in-law about State politics on May 14 
and again on July 1 of that year, urging him to remain in 
public affairs and then went on : 

I am glad to see a disposition to leave Smith at home. I do 
not think that he fairly represents the state. He is narrow 
minded and I believe wedded to the Georgia politicians. If re- 

89 For Smith see J. B. O'Neall's "Bench and Bar," Vol. I, pp. 106-20 
and Jervey's " Hayne," pp. 137 et seq. 

90 " The Life and Times of Robert Y. Hayne," by Theodore D. Jervey, 
p. 84; Shipp's "Crawford." p. 169. Ante, pp. 262, 263. 

91 Letter printed in Shipp's " Crawford," p. 235. 



276 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

elected I doubt not that he will come out openly, which would 
do much mischief. Hayne is the man that ought to be elected. 
He has talents and eloquence and will honour the state. It 
would be imprudent however to utter those sentiments as coming 
from me. 

The letter went on with further references to home politics, 
the writer urging that Warren R. Davis should be elected to 
the House from Pendleton in place of John Wilson, the then 
member, whom he thought honest but " very little calculated 
for the post." Finally, he enclosed a prospectus of the in- 
tended Washington Republican, adding that " it will be con- 
ducted with zeal and abilities, and I hope will be well sup- 
ported. We have need of such a paper. You must sub- 
scribe for it, and get as many others as you can conveniently. 
By putting it into the hands of Joseph Gresham, or some other 
active person at the court house, I dare say many subscribers 
might be obtained. Should any be obtained, care must be 
taken to have the list returned." 

Some evidence as to Calhoun's degree of success in the 
management of political affairs is to be found in the fact that, 
when the Senatorial election came to be held, his candidate, 
Robert Y. Hayne, then a man of but thirty-one years of age, 
was elected over Smith by a vote of 91 to 74, 92 while Wilson 
was at that date re-elected to the House but was defeated 
by Warren R. Davis in 1826, by the narrow margin of 25 
votes. 03 

But the struggle with Smith was by no means over. He re- 
turned to the State and there in 1824 attacked Calhoun, Mc- 
Duffie and Hayne with much vigor in the newspapers. 94 
Elected to the State Legislature, he still waged the same bitter 
warfare, and introduced resolutions aimed against some of 
the leading policies of his enemies, particularly internal im- 
provements and a tariff for protection. These resolutions 
were, moreover, carried by him in the House in December, 
1825, by a two-thirds vote and they got through the Senate 

82 Jervey's "Hayne," p. 143. 

93 Letter of Calhoun in " Correspondence," p. 238. 

04 Jervey's " Hayne," pp. 169, et seq. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 277 

by a majority of one. Calhoun's personal and political friend, 
Simkins, protested against them in the Senate. 95 

To have the Legislature of his own State thus declare 
against one policy, which was a leading one with him at that 
very time, and another with which he had been closely asso- 
ciated but a few years earlier must have been gall and worm- 
wood to Calhoun, but the cup was not yet full. In December, 
1826, Smith was again elected to the United States Senate, 
after the death of John Gaillard, by a vote of 83 to 81 for 
D. E. Huger. The Georgia papers were delighted at this 
choice of a Crawford supporter, the Constitutionalist of Au- 
gusta declaring it to be evidence that " Calhoun was not all 
powerful in the State of South Carolina." 96 Later pages 
will show how little foundation for this view remained in a 
few years, serious as was perhaps the blow to Calhoun's pres- 
tige in 1826. 

In all this contest there was evidently little real difference 
of principle between the two contending factions. It was 
almost entirely a struggle for power between leaders, and just 
what were the actual opinions of Calhoun or Smith in regard 
to the fundamental questions at issue is very doubtful. One 
house of the legislature passed in December, 1824, the Ramsay 
resolutions 9T protesting in the strongest terms against any 

95 Ibid., p. 188. South Carolina Laws, etc., 1825, pp. 88, 89. The same 
resolutions had passed the Senate at the prior session but failed in the 
House (Herman V. Ames's State Documents on Federal Relations, p. 136). 
The first resolution was that " Congress does not possess the power under 
the constitution, to adopt a general system of internal improvement as a 
national measure," and the fifth, " That it is an unconstitutional exercise 
of power, on the part of Congress, to lay duties to protect domestic 
manufactures." 

96 jervey's " Hayne," p. 193. Gaillard had died at a time when the 
South Carolina Legislature was not in session, and the Governor appointed 
William Harper to fill the vacancy. Thomas Cooper wrote that Harper 
would go all lengths in favor of internal improvements and against State 
rights, " provided Calhoun does not lead him," but feared he might be 
gained over by Calhoun, as, he says, William C. Preston had been. (Let- 
ters of Thomas Cooper, 1825-32, printed in " American Historical Review," 
Vol. VI (1900-01, p. 728). Harper was in a few years one of the strongest 
supporters of nullification, but was evidently not gained over at the 
time, for it may be assumed that in the election by the Legislature the 
Calhoun forces supported Huger. Huger, on the other hand, became an 
opponent of Calhoun in a few years on the nullification issue. Such 
were the changes in South Carolina upon that question. 

97 Charleston " Courier " of December 9, 1824. 



278 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

claim of right on the part of the United States to interfere in 
any way in relation to the Negro Seamen Act, while the other 
house tabled these and passed instead by a large majority the 
Prioleau resolutions, 98 which were as mild as well could be, 
and spoke of having respectfully considered the letter of the 
President of the United States upon the subject. On the 
other hand, both branches of the Legislature united at the 
very next session on the ultra Smith resolutions. These moves 
were all beyond doubt personal politics, the mere game of 
fence and spar for position among the leaders." 

A charge against Calhoun's character made by John Quincy 
Adams at about the time of his career with which we are now 
concerned must be noticed. He maintains more or less clearly 
that in a number of instances, — during their Presidential 
rivalry and later, — the Secretary of War was not direct, but 
would profess friendship for one whom his supporters were all 
at the same time actively hounding. Again, the pages of the 
Diary complain that Calhoun was forever seeking the favor 
of the multitude and in one instance reports General Brown 
as speaking of his " excessive thirst of . . . turning every- 
thing into instruments for the promotion of his own popular- 
ity." In the same direction, too, Adams writes that in 1821, 
at the time of the bitter quarrel between Jackson and Judge 
Fromentin, Calhoun wanted, — in order to escape the unpopu- 
larity of not nominating Fromentin and thus seeming to take 
sides, — to have the President send his nomination in to the 
Senate and at the same time confidentially communicate the 
whole correspondence, and thus leave it to the Senate to reject 
the nomination, if members should see fit. 100 

That this was an instance of over-refinement can hardly be 
doubted, and it may have been induced by the desire to avoid 

08 Ibid., of December 22, 1824. 

99 W. J. Grayson in his " Memoir of James Louis Petrigu," p. 93 em- 
phasizes this fact. 

100 Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. V, p. 442; Vol. VI, pp. 277, 537- The 
color so often given to those pages is shown by an entry (ibid., Vol. VII, 
p. 69) to the effect that Clay thought in 1825 that Calhoun " intrigued " 
for votes against his confirmation as Secretary of State by the Senate. 
There was surely no valid reason why he should not try to defeat the 
nomination, but to intrigue is indirect and underhand, so that word is 
selected. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 279 

an unpopular act; but who shall 'scape a whipping, if public 
men are to be so lightly condemned? It is difficult to meet 
specifically charges that are at best vague and were written 
years ago by one of the most jealous and bitter of the sons of 
men, in the small hours of the morning, when alone and stung 
by opposition or impending failure. Nor must it be forgotten 
that the opinions expressed were based largely on partisan 
whisperings of lieutenants, always high-colored and often 
false. No reputation can stand, if we are to accept the thrice- 
distilled gall of the suspicious author of the Diary. 

Calhoun's career in general must furnish the answer to these 
charges. His course on the Compensation Bill is in point for 
the period already covered, and his later history will show 
plainly that he often did unpopular things and would boldly 
face situations of grave difficulty which could easily have been 
avoided. At the same time, he was beyond question a man 
of the intellectual type and by no means one of those born 
fighters who hurl themselves blindly against every obstruc- 
tion; he had the lawyer's habit, too, of always emphasizing 
one side of a case and of skillfully concealing the other, but he 
cannot be justly classed as underhand and indirect. What 
successful public man has ever been in the habit of blurting 
out the whole naked truth ? 

Calhoun had, moreover, open and bitter quarrels with too 
many of his contemporaries to have been a man of the indirect 
type. Some of these have been mentioned, and others will 
appear later. Already at this early day, he and Clay had had a 
falling out. It is said 101 that their relations were strained 
about the time (March, 18 16) when the congressional caucus 
was held to nominate a successor to Madison. Calhoun had 
at first opposed holding one, but attended in the end as an 
ardent and leading supporter of Monroe, while Clay was to 
the last opposed to the meeting. During this dispute, their 
strong wills clashed and a coolness arose between them, which 
was never really removed. How often did they later have 
desperate encounters, marked on both sides by anything but 

101 Jervey's " Hayne," p. 66: McMaster's "United States," Vol. IV, p. 
364- 



280 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the methods of indirection! With Benton and many others, 
too, the same was the case. 

It has been seen that while Calhoun was a member of the 
House his family did not come to Washington with him, and 
he lived in a mess. While he was Secretary of War, however, 
the case was otherwise. He and Mrs. Calhoun made the long 
journey in November, 1817, in their own carriage, bringing 
their children (then two) with them, and the father wrote 
that the children stood the travelling much better and were 
" far less troublesome than we expected." Andrew, the eldest, 
was not well, but his chill was thought to be less severe on the 
day of the letter than it had been. 

Arrived in Washington, they seem to have stayed for a time 
with Lowndes and not to have had permanent quarters until 
March, 18 18, when they took a house on the south side of E. 
St. North, between 6th and 7th Sts., W., in the block east of 
the post office department. 102 This residence was near that 
occupied by William Winston Seaton (one of the editors of the 
National Intelligencer), whose wife wrote to a friend: 

I have mentioned the very agreeable accession to our neigh- 
borhood in the Calhouns. You could not fail to love and ap- 
preciate as I do, her charming qualities ; a devoted mother, tender 
wife, industrious, cheerful, intelligent, with the most perfectly 
equable temper. Mr. Calhoun is a profound statesman and ele- 
gant scholar, you know by public report ; but his manners in a 
private circle are endearing, as well as captivating; and it is as 
much impossible not to love him at home, as it would be to re- 
fuse your admiration of his oratorical powers in the Hall of 
Representatives. Since his absence in Carolina, 103 his wife has 
spent much time with me, coming down in the morning and stop- 

102 A reproduction of an old Washington directory of 1822, owned by 
Mr. J. C. Fitzpatrick of the A1SS. Department in the Library of Congress, 
gives this as the Calhoun residence in that year, and presumably it was 
the one to which they went in 1818. The same reprint has W. W. Seaton 
as living on R St. North, opposite the general post office. 

10a" William Winston Seaton, a biographical sketch." pp. 135, 136. Mrs. 
Seaton's letter, as printed, is dated " March, 1818," but this is probably an 
error, for the session of Congress did not end until April 20th and Cal- 
houn did not go South until after that time. See McDuffie's statement in 
the Mix investigation, Niles's " Register," Vol. XXXI, p. 405, and see 
also Calhoun's letter to Charles Tait, dated July 20, printed in " Gulf 
States Historical Magazine," Vol. I (September, 1902), pp. 92, 93. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 281 

ping till ten at night, and we generally go to church together on 
Sunday. 

In the summer of 1823, the Secretary of War and his family 
were out at Georgetown, where they had probably temporarily 
rented a house. Calhoun wrote on August 7th that they were 
on the heights and found the residence delightful. " The 
health of the children," so the devoted father went on, " is 
very much improved by the fine air and the abundant exercise 
in the Grove." It must have been not very many months after 
this that they bought a place, — " Oakly," — at Georgetown 
which became their residence for at least a year or two. 104 
This was after Calhoun had given up hope of the Presidency 
for the time being but was almost certain of election to second 
place, and Mrs. Smith wrote on April 11, 1824: 

Mr. Calhoun has removed to his house on the hills behind 
George Town and will live I suspect quite retired the rest of 
the session. He does not look well and feels very deeply the 
disappointment of his ambition. 

It must remain a matter of conjecture to what extent this 
judgment was justified. 

" Oakly " had apparently been purchased in part at least by 
the mother-in-law and was probably sold again in 1828. 105 
But before this date, some time during the year 1826, they had 
concluded to fix their permanent residence in the South, in- 
stead of Washington. Calhoun wrote that this change of in- 
tention was partly owing to a desperate illness in his family. 
His son John hovered long between life and death in Wash- 
ington during the spring and summer of 1826, and they finally 
determined, as a last resource, to take him South. On the 
journey the boy continued to sink, until they reached Salisbury, 
when medicines, — or the rest and change, — restored him, 
and they were later able to go on and reach home where " on 
the very day of our arrival his cough ceased and has not since 
returned." This harrowing experience was enough to induce 
their change, and to it were doubtless to be added reasons of 

10 * J. Q. Adams's " Diary," Vol. VI, p. 300 ; " Calhoun Correspondence," 

P- 233- 

105 " Calhoun Correspondence," pp. 256, 257. 



282 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

economy, the inconvenience and even danger of the long jour- 
neys, and possibly some political motives. 106 

After this date, Calhoun's letters during the session are all 
dated from Washington. Presumably, they rented or boarded 
in the capital, and the children were no longer all brought 
North, — there were six in 1827, — but were left with either 
friends or relatives and at school. Mrs. Calhoun still came to 
Washington with her husband sometimes for a part of the 
year, but the long journey and the separation from the chil- 
dren were of course serious troubles and in 1826-27 and in 
1827-28 she remained in the South, 107 and in the spring of 
1829, she went home, we are told by one of her friends, 108 
" not to return again, at least for four years," — words which, 
of course, have reference to Calhoun's expected succession to 
the Presidency after Jackson's intended one term. 

In South Carolina Calhoun still owned a plantation in Abbe- 
ville, but Pendleton was already his home. He seems to have 
begun to live there in 1825, at a place called Clergy Hall, which 
his mother-in-law had rented as early as 1819; but during 
1826 he either bought this place or acquired it by exchange, 
and intended at one time to build a new house " on the hill 
to the left of the road to the court house." But this purpose 
does not seem to have been carried out, and he probably altered 
the existing mansion. 109 His home here was the one known 
as Fort Hill, where he lived for the balance of his life. The 
name was derived from " an old fortification built by General 
Pickens, in Revolutionary times to overawe the Cherokees," 
situated on a hill visible in the distance from the House. 110 

106 Letters of Calhoun dated May 28, June 14, and December 24, 1826, 
and February 14 and August 26, 1827 ; " Correspondence," pp. 233-236, 237- 
240. 

107 " Calhoun Correspondence," pp. 238, 256, 257. 

108 " T ne Fj rst p or t y Years of Washington Society," by Mrs. Samuel 
Harrison Smith, p. 290. 

109 "Calhoun Correspondence," p. 236, for the intention to build a new 
house, but this plan was contingent on securing certain land, and Mrs. 
Mell (foot-note no infra) says clearly that part of the house was quite 
old. See also "Correspondence," 235, 236. 

110 " John C. Calhoun, from a Southern Standpoint," by Charles Cotes- 
worth Pinckney, in " Lippincott's Magazine," Vol. LXII (July, 1808), pp. 
81-90, and see Mrs. Patrick Hues Mell's article on " John C. Calhoun's 
Home at Fort Hill " in the Charleston " News " of Sunday, April 30, 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 283 

The mansion escaped the passions of the Civil War and is still 
standing to-day. 

During much at least of the time of Calhoun's residence in 
Washington and Georgetown, his mother-in-law was a part of 
his family, and he had expressed to her in 1820 m the hope 
that she would take up her permanent abode with him. 
She was a woman of strong religious tendencies and evidently 
highly evangelical. On one occasion, we learn that she pur- 
sued with almost daily visits a Mrs. Tasslet, who is described 
as being at the time " the ghost of what she was," and whom 
Mrs. Colhoun thought to be under a religions concern. The 
writer much feared that in the distracted state of Mrs. Tass- 
let, Mrs. Colhoun was not " the most useful friend she could 

have." 

Again, in the autumn of 1822, a revival was held in Wash- 
ington and two young pastors had been brought in as aids. 
With one of these, Mrs. Colhoun went out despite a drenching 
rain, in order, according to her daughter's expression, "to 
beat up recruits " for church in the evening. The eloquent 
preacher was said never to have been known to exhort without 
making at least half a dozen converts, and only a few evenings 
before one of the gayest and most fashionable young ladies had 
been convicted and converted. So overcome by her feelings 
was this butterfly of fashion, whose name is suppressed, that 
she had run forward and thrown herself on the exhorter's 
shoulder and lain there, sobbing and crying, " while he in- 
quired into her feelings and talked most powerfully and pa- 
thetically with her." 112 

Perhaps, such performances as these and some of the daugh- 
ter's expressions as to her mother's course of action may lead 

1905. Another writer dates the old fort back still further to the wars of 
the Indians among themselves, " Scribner's Magazine," Vol. XXI, (April, 
1880), pp. 802-805. 

111 Letter of May 7 in "Correspondence," p. 173. She was, however, at 
least not always with him. See his letters to her in the spring and sum- 
mer of 1826, " Correspondence," pp. 233-236. 

112 Mrs. Smith's " First Forty Years," etc., pp. 153, 15*4, 159, 160. Per- 
haps, this revival was in part owing to the prevalence of cholera and other 
diseases at that time in parts of the country. In Washington, however, 
it was not severe, and the reports of deaths from cholera printed in the 
" National Intelligencer " for August-October call for but 25 deaths in the 
three months. 



284 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

us to think that Calhoun and his wife did not fully sympathize 
in this matter with Mrs. Colhoun. But no one can fail to be 
pleased with another scene of the time from the Calhoun in- 
terior. In March, 1820, their infant daughter grew ill and 
died on the 22nd of the month. This was before the days of 
trained nurses, but their absence was at least lightened. All 
the family's acquaintance volunteered assistance. Mrs. Smith 
stayed two days and sat up one night, and she adds: 113 

I never in my life witnessed such attention. Ladies of the 
first and gayest fashion, as well as particular friends, pressed 
their attendance in a way not to be denied. The President called 
every day, and his daughter Mrs. Hay, although in the midst 
of bridal festivities, came three evenings successively to beg to 
sit up and was denied as other ladies were engaged. . . . Mrs. 
Adams in the like manner and twenty others would attend. . . . 
All this was not a mere tribute to rank, no, — I am persuaded 
much of it was from that good will which both Mr. and Mrs. 
Calhoun have universally excited; they are really beloved. 

Calhoun and his family took no little part during these years 
in the social life of Washington, and he seems to have been 
known in advance as having social talents. Mrs. Smith wrote 
in 18 1 7 of every one as being pleased with his and Wirt's ap- 
pointments and added : " they will be most agreeable additions 
to our society." The forecast was certainly right, and Cal- 
houn gave and received dinners; and Mrs. Smith 114 tells us 
that in February, 1819, he gave a very large ball — "five 
rooms crowded " — which she " could not resist attending." 
Some few years later (1829) the Smiths had several parties 
at home, of which the largest of about forty persons " was 
made in compliment to our old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Cal- 
houn." 

On another occasion, in 1819, after having been to hear 
Clay speak on the Seminole war, Mrs. Smith dined at the 
Calhouns', of which occasion she wrote as follows: 

At dinner I gave Mr. Calhoun an ample detail of the speech, 
which led to a great deal of conversation of men, measures and 

* 13 Ibid., pp. 149, 150. 

i« " First Forty Years," etc., p. 148. 



IN MONROE'S CABINET 285 

facts. You know how frank and communicative he is, and con- 
sidering I was very much animated by the scene of the morn- 
ing, perhaps you will not be surprised at our conversing without 
any interruption until 9 o'clock. I several times after tea begged 
him to read or write and make no stranger of me, but this his 
politeness would not permit him to do. . . . At last I jumped 
up declaring I would keep him no longer from business, and pro- 
posed to Mrs. Calhoun to adjourn to our chamber. 115 

There was probably no period in Calhoun's public career that 
was on the whole so full of happiness as the more than seven 
years during which he held the position of Secretary of War. 
But forty-three years of age at its close, he had apparently 
every reason to be in the highest degree contented with his lot. 
Happily married and surrounded with a family of five children, 
in whom he was deeply interested, taking no little part in the 
social life of the capital, and indulging constantly in that 
highly interested and interesting exchange of views with the 
bright men and women about him, which always character- 
ized him, he had, too, broader and perhaps more intoxicating 
causes of contentment. Ambition, the guiding star of some 
and the ruin of others, was undoubtedly a part of his nature, 
and surely he had reason to be satisfied as to his position in the 
public eye and the promise of the future. Feeling his powers 
and making a splendid record in the office he held, and with 
such a meteoric rise as his had been, since he was sent to Con- 
gress in 181 1, the highest office in the country seemed certainly 
and easily within his grasp. Probably there was not a man 
in public life whom so many would have picked out as likely 
to attain that highest ambition of any American. 

Possibly, the cold critic might have thought, — with John 
Quincy Adams, — that his rise had been too rapid for his own 
good. It is a valuable training for all men to serve during 
their early years in minor places and bear the buffetings of the 
struggle on the lower rungs of fame's ladder, to do a good 
share of drudgery and endure the humiliations of many kinds 
which plastic youth takes so easily. But Calhoun had had 
none of this. Practising law but for two or three years and 

i" Mrs. Smith's " First Forty Years " etc., p. 147. 



286 



LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 



even then in the first ranks, his nine weeks' service in the State 
Legislature was far too short a term to temper and mould the 
mettle within him, so that it should slowly crystallize into 
proper form, and in the House of Representatives he rushed 
with the speed of a meteor to intoxicating national fame and 
power. The reader must decide for himself whether this was 
an advantage in the long run to the brilliant almost stripling 
or whether his career might otherwise have been even greater 
and free from some of the mistakes with which he has been 
charged. 



CHAPTER XI 

ADAMS AND CALHOUN 

Political Rivalry — The Presidential Election of 1824-25 
— The Washington Republican — Troubles in the Republi- 
can Camp — Calhoun's Loss of Pennsylvania — Withdraws 
from Candidacy — Elected Vice-President — John Randolph 
— " Patrick Henry " and " Onslow." 

The reader will have observed how close were the relations 
prevailing between Adams and Calhoun in the early years of 
Monroe's administration. They were, indeed, at that time 
intimate friends, entertained each other socially, met for con- 
versation and comparison of opinion, and presumably Calhoun 
thought of Adams about as well as Adams did of him. The 
latter's "Diary" for a few years after 1818 has repeated 
references to its author's admiration of the South Carolinian, 
speaking of him, for instance, as " a man of fair and candid 
mind, of honorable principles, of clear and quick understand- 
ing, of cool self-possession, of enlarged philosophical views, 
and of ardent patriotism. He is above all sectional and fac- 
tious prejudices more than any other statesman of this Union 
with whom I have ever acted. He is more sensitive to the 
transient manifestations of momentary public opinion, more 
afraid of the first impressions of the public opinion than I am." 
Probably, the frigid and forbidding Puritan has recorded of 
few men, as he once does of Calhoun : " I took a long evening 
ramble " with him. 

In the end of 1819, too, Adams urged his colleague to accept 
the Mission to France, telling him that he " expected more 
from him than from any man living to the benefit of the public 
service of this nation," and intimating that a residence in 
Europe would much enlarge his sphere of usefulness. Cal- 
houn admitted this but said he could not meet the expense. 

287 



288 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Whether Adams was partially and perhaps unconsciously in- 
fluenced in this suggestion by the desire to remove to a dis- 
tance one who might become a rival to his ambition must re- 
main unknown. 1 

There was one quite evident reason for Adams's admira- 
tion. Though he had broken away from the old Federalists 
at the time when they wanted to separate the East from the 
Union, he was at no time a real Republican but always in 
thorough accord with the centralizing tendencies of the party 
he had left. Calhoun, too, was at this date still in favor of a 
strong and splendid federal government and not as yet much 
troubled with scruples as to constitutional power. He re- 
mained still the Calhoun of the House of Representatives dur- 
ing and after the War of 1812. No wonder then that in- 
stances arose occasionally in which Adams wrote, as quoted 
above from the Diary of 18 19, of the younger man as being 
above all sectional prejudices, or in 1822 that he " has no petty 
scruples about constructive powers and state rights." 2 Nor 
can it in my opinion be doubted that these expressions of opin- 
ion represented fairly well Calhoun's opinions at that time and 
for a few years later. 

But the friendship between the two men could not stand the 
strain when they became rivals for the Presidency of 1825. 
In that memorable contest, when the leading characters of the 
Revolution had reached a time of life too far advanced to bear 
the burden of the office and when what has been called " the 
Virginia dynasty " was coming to an end, there were a number 
of competitors. It was the turn of tide in the era of good 
feeling and there was no opposition to the Republican party; 
but it split for the time into numerous factions guided by per- 
sonal preference rather than by difference of principle. 
Adams was longing for the office by March, 1818, and his 
name had been suggested by friends in New England as early 
as 181 7. Crawford and Clay were also already leading can- 
didates and by 18 18 Jackson's friends were pushing his claims. 3 

1 Adams's " Memoirs," Vol. V, p. 361 ; ibid., Vol. IV, pp. 407, 477, 5", 

524. 

2 Adams's "Memoirs." Vol. VT. p. 75. 

» Adams's "Memoirs." Vol. IV, pp. 62, 197, 198. Schouler's "United 
States," Vol. Ill, p. 238. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 289 

To these names were added ere long those of Lowndes and 
Calhoun. Crawford was undoubtedly at first the main repre- 
sentative of the Southern interest, but he met with serious 
rebuffs in his own State in 1819 and 1821, and it is likely he 
was right in thinking that these defeats inspired the two 
South Carolinians with the hope to supplant him. In 18 19 
his personal enemy Clark, with whom he had had a duel, was 
elected Governor of Georgia over Troup by a narrow major- 
ity, and again in the fall of 1821 Clark defeated Troup, this 
time by only 2 votes, it seems. Crawford wrote with acri- 
mony from Washington in November that he presumed there 
was " great joy in one of the departments, at least, at this 
place," and added that Calhoun was known to have expressed 
the opinion that, if Clark should again succeed, Georgia would 
be against Crawford. Some months later the Secretary of 
the Treasury was still writing bitterly of " our Mars," who, 
he complains, gets all the offices and is regarded by the public 
as " the lord of the ascendant." He goes on that Calhoun 
and Lowndes, looking upon him as hors du combat, supposed 
" the Southern interest would become the property of the first 
adventurer. Mr. Calhoun had made a tour of observation in 
Pennsylvania, whilst Mr. Lowndes kept watch at home." 

According to Crawford, some time prior to these events, 
the Missouri contest and the election of Taylor over Lowndes 
as Speaker in November of 1820, upon Clay's resignation, had 
convinced Calhoun that a geographical party had been formed, 
which would for several years control the course of events: 
and during the following Congressional session and until late 
in the year 1821, the same authority tells us that Calhoun had 
openly supported the claims of Adams to the Presidency. He 
further adds, too, that on October 16, 1821, before Clark's 
second triumph and shortly after Calhoun's return from his 
tour of observation in Pennsylvania, — which presumably re- 
fers to his visit to Bedford Springs in September, 1821, — 
Calhoun voluntarily assured him that he would under no cir- 
cumstances be a candidate, and Crawford was evidently of the 
opinion that Calhoun had in view the attainment of the office 
by himself only some years later. Adams, too, writes that in 



2QO LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

March of 1821 Calhoun had " no view to himself for the 
presidency." 

Soon after Clark's second election in Georgia, however, ac- 
cording to Crawford, Calhoun threw himself on Pennsylvania, 
— " the old stamping-ground," " his native State," — and 
Lowndes was also nominated by members of the South Caro- 
lina Legislature, under the same belief that the Southern in- 
terest had become derelict. The appearance of these two 
nominees did not escape Adams's close observation of the 
field, but as late as January, 1822, he was told by one of his 
lieutenants who had conversed with Calhoun that the latter 
looked upon himself as a candidate only in case the nominee 
should be a Southerner and that he would not oppose the 
claims of Adams or any other Northerner. 4 

Most of these suspicions and fancies may probably be dis- 
missed as of little consequence, nor is it easy to see why Cal- 
houn should not change his mind and determine later to be a 
candidate at the then approaching election. There is not the 
least reason to suppose that his earlier action was meant to 
mislead his rivals. What is clear in the matter is that, after 
the second defeat of Crawford's candidate Troup in Georgia 
in the fall of 1821, Lowndes was nominated for the presi- 
dency by a caucus of the South Carolina Legislature held on 
December 18, 1821; and that on December 28 Calhoun was 
called upon at his lodgings in Washington in the evening by 
a deputation of members of Congress and asked to allow the 
use of his name as a candidate. After some consideration, 
he consented and agreed to stand. 5 From this time on for a 

4 Letters of Crawford printed in Shipp's "Crawford," pp. 229, 230, 232", 
233, and in Henry Adams's " Life of Gallatin." pp. 579-582. J. Q. Adams's 
" Memoirs," Vol. V, pp. 327, 447, 478. " Calhoun Correspondence," pp. 

195-97- 

5 " National Tntclligencer " of January to and iq, 1822. Adams's "Me- 
moirs," Vol. V, pp. 466, 468, 470. Of the total of 169 members of the South 
Carolina Legislature 1 10 attended the caucus, and of these =,7 favored a 
nomination at that time, while 53 were opposed. There is a hint that the S3 
were to some extent guided by friendship for Calhoun, but Lowndes, whose 
health was then already breaking, received a unanimous vote. J. Q. 
Adams writes later (ibid.. VI, pp. -M2, 243) that S. D. Ingham and Thomas 
J. Rogers (a manufacturer) were the leaders in this movement for Cal- 
houn, but it is not entirely clear whether the calling delegation was entirely 
composed of Pennsylvanians or was partly from the North and partly 
from the South. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 291 

number of years he was, beyond doubt, most eager for the 
office. 

In regard to these movements, Calhoun wrote Maxcy on 
December 31, 182 1, 6 that the nomination of Lowndes was 
" a very rash and foolish movement. ... I was informed by 
my friends," he continues, " of this state of the public opin- 
ion [the unpopularity of Adams and Crawford] and pro- 
posed to be brought forward by them. I, however, adhered 
still to the ground, which I at first assumed, not thinking that 
there was sufficient evidence of such a state of facts existing, 
which, taking place, I have always thought that it would be 
my duty to run all hazards." 

This decision of his and the unpopularity of the candidates 
led to the movement in South Carolina. He adds that there 
was no disagreement between himself and Lowndes, and that 
he had told the latter at an earlier date that he would not re- 
sist the opinion of those who thought Ire ought to be brought 
forward, and Lowndes had agreed to the sufficiency of his 
reasons. Lowndes had called on Calhoun, after hearing of 
his own nomination in South Carolina, and Calhoun asked 
whether he ought to retire, but Lowndes answered No. They 
took measures, also, to prevent any clash of their friends. In 
regard to the opinion Adams might possibly hold of his enter- 
ing the field, Calhoun further wrote Maxcy that the nomina- 
tion of Lowndes proves, that I remained on the ground, which 
I had at first assumed, as long as I could with safety to my- 
self, and must satisfy Mr. Adams and his friends, that I was 
compelled by the course of events to assume a more distinct 
position." 

None the less, from about this time the friendship between 
Calhoun and Adams waned, and the latter became bitterly 
jealous of his new rival. Their relations were for a time en- 
tirely broken and were never again in reality resumed. Craw- 
ford's friendship with Calhoun had already become a sacri- 
fice, evidently, in the main, to the like clash of ambitions. 
The two men, though from different States, at home lived not 
far from each other and are said to have been long on friendly 

6 Maxcy-Markoe Collection in Library of Congress. __ 



292 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

terms; but they began to break apart at an early day in Cal- 
houn's public career. It is quite likely that, as has been sug- 
gested, Calhoun's advocacy of Monroe in 1816 was the start- 
ing point of their separation. The elderly Georgian, who ap- 
preciated to the full his own abilities, and probably felt that 
long services entitled him to the nomination, was a man of 
vindictive nature and may well have thought the action of the 
young South Carolinian little short of a crime. 

An early instance of his opposition to the Secretary of War 
is to be found in the already mentioned effort made in 1821 
to break down that system of fortifications which had been 
decided upon in 181 5-16 and was a favorite interest of Cal- 
houn. This was accomplished by defeating, under the plea 
of economy, the appropriations for certain works in connec- 
tion with the defences of New Orleans, and is said to have 
been aimed at Monroe as well as at Calhoun. The President 
evidently felt it strongly, and on March 26, 1822, wrote a 
special message to Congress upon the subject, in which he in- 
veighed against its impolicy in language plain enough despite 
its restraint. 

The rivalry between the Secretaries of War and of the 
Treasury grew steadily more bitter and became soon a posi- 
tive enmity. Though of course more or less veiled while 
they were serving together in Monroe's cabinet, yet even then 
there was a period when they " had no friendly communica- 
tion with each other," and John Quincy Adams recorded in 
1822 that the cabinet discussions between them "had become 
painful by the tone in which they express their opinions — 
being that of suppressed hatred and subdued anger." 7 All 
this rivalry and constant friction led Calhoun to entertain a 
very poor opinion of Crawford, while John Quincy Adams 
with characteristic bitterness found at about this time the hid- 
den hand of Crawford in almost every instance in which he 
did not have his own way. It was not very long before the 
diarist began to devote a large share of the same secret venom 
to abuse of Calhoun, but such distorted fancies of contempo- 

7 " Writings of James Monroe," Vol. VIT. p. 220; and see " Antobiog 
rnpliy," p. 28. Adams's " Memoirs," Vol. VI, pp. 243-46. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 293 

raries are always to be accepted with the greatest hesitation. 8 
Far different was the case with the friendship between 
Calhoun and Lowndes, which seems never to have been even 
shaken, despite the fact that they were rivals in the same 
State. Immediately upon being put in nomination, it is said 
that Calhoun in turn called on Lowndes to tell him that the 
nomination was made " without his procurement or solicita- 
tion," and that he hoped the fact of their being opposing can- 
didates would make no difference in their private relations. 
Lowndes assured him that it would not and added that he, 
too, had been nominated without his knowledge. Lowndes 
even wrote James Hamilton soon, expressing the wish that, 
if enough States should support Calhoun, South Carolina 
would transfer her vote to him, and the political wiseacres of 
the time are said to have been greatly surprised to see these 
two rivals still continue, as in the past, their daily walk to- 
gether to the Capitol, without the slightest difference having 
been brought about by the new circumstances. Lowndes's 
health was at this time already failing and he died in Octo- 
ber, 1822. 9 

The campaign of 1824-25 began very early in its course 
to be conducted with a great deal of abuse, and Calhoun com- 
plained bitterly in some letters in the spring of 1822 of the 
City Gazette of Washington and its constant attacks on him. 
This paper was Crawford's organ, and in the summer of that 
year Calhoun and his friends seem to have concluded that 
they also must have a paper in their interest. Accordingly, 
the Washington Republican was started in August with Col. 
T. L. McKenney as its editor. McKenney had been a clerk 
in the War Office under Calhoun but did not hold the position 
during his editorship. Adams writes in 1824 that he was an 
unnaturalized Englishman, but this point cannot be solved 
to-day nor is it of any real importance. 10 

8 Schouler's "United States," Vol. Ill, p. 261. "Writings of James 
Monroe," Vol. VII, p. 82; Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. VI, p. 57- 

Jenkins's "Life of Calhoun," 154, 155. Mrs. Ravenel's "William 
Lowndes," 226-230. 

"Gaillard Hunt's "Calhoun," p. 46; John Quincy Adams's "Memoirs," 
Vol. VI, p. 291 ; and see pp. 47, 48, 56, 66, 69, et seq.; Schouler's " United 
States," Vol. Ill, p. 265. 



294 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Calhoun was active in starting the paper, had at least a hand 
in the prospectus and in obtaining subscribers, and writes, too, 
of furnishing the editor with some reflections which McKen- 
ney was to bring out in his own words. 11 It is not unlikely, 
too, that he supplied to some extent the financial means to start 
and carry it on. He complains of heavy expenses at this 
time and was apparently borrowing money in December of 
1823, 12 and the paper came to an end and sold its plant to 
the National Journal in 1824, at about the date when Calhoun 
abandoned his presidential aspirations. Adams writes that it 
had not been a financial success. 13 

The Washington Republican, — such was its title, — was an 
evening paper, at first published twice a week, later three times, 
and finally daily. It bore for a motto the words " Virtus 
Libertas et natale Solum," and was bright, well-written and 
above the standard of the day. The City Gazette, Crawford's 
organ, was quite unable to cope with it. Of course it was 
decidedly partisan and indulged in the newspaper wit then 
usual. Thus about the time of the Congressional Caucus of 
1824, in which Van Buren was actively concerned, its columns 
contained various fictitious notices, one of which was signed : 
" By order of the General Caucus. Martin Van Bring-up, 
Corporal on the Look-out," and another " King Caucus/' and 
countersigned " M. Van-der-Buck-Tail, Prime Minister and 
Grand Sachem. Month of Wind." 

The serious purpose of the paper, however, was of course 
to advocate Calhoun for the presidency and to write down 
Crawford in particular. Mrs. Smith even wrote that McKen- 
ney was making every efTort to drive the latter from the cab- 
inet, and he was forever under fire in its columns, but I know 
of only one instance in which his personal honesty was at- 

11 Letter of August 2, 1822, to Virgil Maxcy, in the Maxcy-Markoe 
papers in the Library of Congress. 

12 " Calhoun Correspondence," pp. 206, 213, 216. The same complaint 
of heavy expenses occurs in Calhoun's letters of other dates. See infra, 

p. 345- 

13 " Memoirs," Vol. VI, pp. 201, 396, 400. The first number of the " Re- 
publican " was issued on August 7, 1822, and the last, July 10, 1824. The 
" National Journal," which succeeded it, was edited by Peter Force, and 
was in the interest of Adams and his friends. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 295 

tacked. This was during the year 1823 and in a series of 
very scurrilous articles signed " A. B.," in reality written by 
Ninian Edwards. They charged Crawford with corrupt deal- 
ings with the banks and other disgraceful transactions ; but 
the charges became later a subject of Congressional investiga- 
tion, and Crawford was exonerated and Edwards totally dis- 
credited. 

This "A. B. plot," as it was called at the time, was in 
Benton's opinion 14 detrimental to Calhoun in the end, but 
there is nothing, so far as I know, to show that he had any 
hand in the appearance of the articles. It may be worth while 
to add that McKenney was in turn charged not much later 
with being a defaulter. 15 

Calhoun was very popular in Pennsylvania, and long re- 
mained full of hopes of success in that State. The Franklin 
Gazette of Philadelphia, — of which he wrote on March 18, 
1822, 1C that it "comes out with great tone" for him, — was 
a supporter, and there is evidence that during that year there 
was some thought among his friends of securing a formal 
nomination, probably by the Democratic members of the Penn- 
sylvania Legislature. This led, however, to violent attacks by 
the friends of Clay and Crawford, and the plan was abandoned 
for the time. 17 

The next year, again, at the meeting of the State Conven- 
tion at Harrisburg on March 4, Calhoun's friends evidently 
planned to secure his endorsement, if possible, but the design 
had again to be given up. The general question was for a time 
before the body, when a delegate from Westmoreland County, 
in obedience to express instructions, offered a resolution 

1 4 " Thirty Years' View," I, pp. 34-36. The file of the " Republican " in 
the Library of Congress is very imperfect, and I have seen but one of 
the " A.B." letters. They are, however, of very little importance, and 
the one number sufficiently indicates their character. 

15 The " Republican " for 1824, passim. 

16 Letter to Virgil Maxcy, in Maxcy-Markoe papers in Library of Con- 
gress. 

17 Adams's " Memoirs," Vol. VI, pp. 42, 43. See also the denial in " The 
National Intelligencer " of February 7, 1822, of the report that the Pennsyl- 
vania delegation in Congress had sent two of their members to Harrisburg; 
and the same paper a week or two earlier denies that the Pennsylvania 
delegation had held a caucus in Washington. 



296 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

recommending Jackson for President, but the members were 
not inclined to run the risk of coming out so early and in favor 
of a man perhaps not destined to succeed in the end. One can 
almost feel the fright and skurrying to and fro of the pol- 
iticians, when we read in the Franklin Gazette 18 that " several 
motions were made to lay the resolution on the table, and to 
proceed to its consideration, but almost by common consent the 
convention declined to have anything to do with it. They 
deemed it inexpedient to perform any formal act upon a sub- 
ject of so much delicacy and importance so early." 

In regard to this result, Calhoun wrote 19 on March 12 and 
13 to Virgil Maxcy, his friend and lieutenant in Maryland: 

I have just heard from Mr. Dallas. The question of taking 
up the nomination of President was tried on presenting the name 
of General Jackson, by the delegates from Westmoreland, who 
had been instructed to that effect. My friends were prepared 
to bring my name forward if the question should be entertained ; 
but there appeared such aversion to the subject both on account 
of the want of authority in the members and the fear that it 
might distract their state election, that they thought it prudent 
not to bring my name forward at all, so that even the appearance 
of an abortive attempt has been avoided. 

It was fully ascertained that I had 2/3 of the convention against 
all of the other candidates combined ; and my friends in the state 
were never in better spirits. 

Arrangements must be made to bring out the next Legislature 
at the commencement of the session ; and in the meantime as 
much spirit given both to correspondence and papers as may be 
practicable. 

It is certain that the election is with Pennsylvania and New 
York. If they unite they choose their man ; if they divide their 
respective candidates must become the rival candidates. This 
simple view combined with my known strength in Pennsylvania 
places me on high ground. The idea must be scouted that I 
have withdrawn, or that there is the least foundation for its 
assertion. 

... I may be mistaken, but it appears to me my prospect 
was never better. I stand on the great republican cause free 

18 Number for March 8, 1823. 

19 Letters in Maxcy-Markoe collection in Library of Congress. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN' 297 

alike from the charge of federalism or radicalism. If you can 
obtain any support for the paper here [doubtless, the Republican] 
it would be desirable. A thousand or even five hundred dollars 
would be at present important to the editors. Mr. Cox the 
Mayor of Georgetown would indorse for the editor. He has 
very extensive possessions but not a command of cash at pres- 
ent. Without some support I fear the editor may encounter in- 
surmountable difficulties. 

These letters show how sanguine Calhoun was in 1823, 20 
and his published correspondence shows the same thing in 

1822. He wrote his brother-in-law on March 19 of the lat- 
ter year that his friends, thought his " political prospect good, 
in fact better than any other who is spoken of. I do not 
think Mr. L. [Lowndes] is much spoken of. He has few op- 
ponents but still fewer ardent friends. My own opinion is 
that the contest will be between Adams, Crawford and my- 
self." Crawford, on the other hand, thought 21 in February, 

1823, that Calhoun was " hors du combat, having consigned 
his forces, that were disposable, to an Eastern general." 

This was, however, merely the view of a rival, and it has 
plainly appeared that Calhoun was full of hope at this very 
time, as well as both earlier and later, and only six months 
after Crawford wrote as above, Calhoun told Maxcy 22 
" Crawford is certainly done. A warm and intimate friend of 
his from Georgia, who is well acquainted with the state, 
acknowledges that it is doubtful whether he can take the state 

20 On March 27, 1823, he wrote Micah Sterling, his former classmate at 
Yale, under the same inspiration. Sterling was one of his aids in New 
York, and Calhoun wished him to write and write often for the press, and 
outlined his own claims as follows : " My past services, my identity with 
the late war and the administration, my uniform Republican course, my 
habits of industry and business, the distinctness of my political principles, 
and the openness and candour which even my enemies concede to me, all 
furnish topics for arguments to sustain the cause." A later letter of 
May 28, 1823, to Sterling admits that Adams had undoubtedly gained and 
was then very strong, but adds " I still think, however, though not now 
as strong as he is, that I have some striking advantages over him, which 
will manifest themselves strongly before the end of the contest " (Letters 
in the collection of John Gribbel, Esq., of Philadelphia). See also Adams's 
" Memoirs," Vol. VI, p. jr. 

21 Letter of February 16 to Tait, printed in Slupp's "Crawford,' p. 236. 

22 Letter of August 13, 1823, in the Maxcy-Markoe papers in the Library 
of Congress. 



298 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

from me, and thinks the election between the Clark and Craw- 
ford candidates doubtful. His neighbors have abandoned 
him. It is time to make a move on our own ground, and to 
separate our cause from all others, particularly Adams." 
Here we have another mistaken judgment, but in November, 
when the Crawford candidate had been elected in Georgia, 
Calhoun consoled himself with the solace that his friends 
looked upon the circumstances attending the election as likely 
" to strengthen my prospect rather than to weaken it." 23 

It has been seen that Calhoun looked upon New York and 
Pennsylvania as the most important states, and, though he had 
generally little hope from the former, yet he evidently watched 
the ground carefully and corresponded upon the matter with 
Monroe's son-in-law, Gouverneur, during 1823, and both 
McDuffie and another of his lieutenants made visits there in 
his interest. In his letters Van Buren " and the rest of the 
intriguers" were handled without gloves; and in November, 
when Calhoun's friends, " the People's party," had a decided 
success in New York City, Maxcy wrote : " the impression is 
rapidly increasing that he will get this powerful State, with- 
out whose votes no candidate can be chosen by the Electors." 
Calhoun, too, then thought that Van Buren, Crawford and 
the intended Congressional Caucus in the interest of the lat- 
ter were crushed, but in the end, as is well known, Van Buren 
triumphed absolutely and New York became one of the strong- 
est supporters of Crawford. 24 

Movements in Calhoun's favor were made in various States 
and on November 29, 1823, after the death of Lowndes, he 
was nominated by the South Carolina Legislature by an al- 
most unanimous vote. At about the same time, he advised de- 
lay in a proposed movement at Annapolis, writing that " cer- 
tainty is more important than promptitude." 25 As time wore 
on, the contest grew steadily more bitter and Jackson kept for- 

23 Letter of November 25, 1823, to Maxcy in the Maxcy-Markoe papers 
in Library of Congress. 

24 Letters of Calhoun to Sam'l. L. Gouverneur, printed in " Bulletin of 
the New York Public Library," Vol. Ill (1899), pp. 324-327. Letter of 
Virgil Maxcy to R. S. Garnett in "American Historical Review," Vol. 
XII (No. 3: April, 1907), pp. 600, 601. 

26 " Correspondence," p. 216. Niles's " Register," of December 20, 1823. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 299 

ever gaining in popularity so that there were soon no less 
than five leading candidates, — Adams, Crawford, Clay, Cal- 
houn, and Jackson. No wonder that all sorts of rumors flew 
about, some absolutely false, others probably inspired by leak- 
age from plans more or less under discussion as possible 
courses of action in some one of the camps. 

Thus, as early as January, 1824, it was whispered abroad 
that there was to be a coalition between Calhoun and Adams, 
but Calhoun wrote on January 30 that this was " one of the 
devices of the enemy. It is a report wholly destitute of fact 
to support it; and is not believed by those who circulate it. I 
stand wholly on my own basis, and shall continue so to stand. 
The prospect is good. The election will be left as it ought 
to be to the people. They alone have the right. Our friends 
oppose a caucus not through a fear of weakness in Congress, 
but through principle. A Congressional caucus will certainly 
fail." 

The method of nominating Presidential candidates was 
then far from fixed. There was no National Nominating 
Convention held until 1831-32, and candidates were suggested 
in various ways by unauthorized but usually important bodies, 
while the seal of " regularity " had been given in the past 
by the Congressional Caucus. At this time, however, that 
old piece of political machinery was visibly breaking down 
and had for some years been looked upon with growing dis- 
favor. Calhoun had attended the caucus of 181 2 as a sup- 
porter of Madison, and again in 1816, though he is said to 
have been opposed to holding one and to have long stood out 
against it, yet in the end he attended, in order to avoid a split 
in the party. 20 Crawford relied upon securing its endorse- 
ment that year, while Monroe's friends had opposed calling 
the body together. When it met, the vote was in favor of 
Monroe by a small majority. Calhoun was strongly in favor 
of the latter, and as early as January 4, 18 15, had expressed 
in a letter to a relative his opinion that Monroe " will be the 
coming man." 

26 " Autobiography," pp. 28-29, J. E. D. Shipp's "Life and Times of 
William H. Crawford," pp. 173-75. Jenkins's " Life," p. 155. 



3 oo LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

In 1820 a congressional caucus was called, but was a fail- 
ure. Only very few attended, and they decided against mak- 
ing any nomination. There was, indeed, no real opposition 
that year, and Monroe was reelected by a practically unani- 
mous vote. But in 1824 the question became once more vital. 
Crawford was again in favor of a caucus, but several Legisla- 
tures declared against it, and the friends of Adams, Calhoun, 
Clay, and Jackson united in opposition to calling one. 27 In 
the different States various political meetings declared them- 
selves one way or the other upon this subject, and some pro- 
posals were made that seem to have been highly important in 
the growth of our present system of making nominations. 

In Pennsylvania, as early as January 10, 1824, the Demo- 
cratic members of the Legislature met at the State Capitol and 
recommended Democrats throughout the State to choose a 
number of delegates equal to the number of their senators and 
representatives, to meet at Harrisburg on the 4th of March 
next and " form an Electoral Ticket to be supported by the 
Democratic party, at the ensuing election for Electors of 
President and Vice-President." 28 Nor was this all. Two 
days earlier, a meeting of Democrats in Lancaster County in 
the same State, after resolving in favor of a Congressional 
Caucus, had gone on to express their opinion that a Conven- 
tion of delegates from all the States of the Union would be 
the best method of selecting a candidate for the Presidency 
but for the fact that our country was so immense as to render 
this method impossible. 29 Here was an idea of great moment, 

27 J. Q. Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. V, p. 60; Vol. VI, pp. 191, 231, 232, 
240, 241; Parton's "Jackson," Vol. Ill, pp. 25-29. 

28 "The National Intelligencer" of January 15, 1824. 

20 Ibid., of January 17, 1824. An unnamed Democratic member of Con- 
gress wrote from Washington on January 6 to the " Franklin Gazette," 
sending the anti-caucus circular signed by 14 Democratic members from 
Pennsylvania (soon to be mentioned), and then saying: "I sincerely hope 
that Pennsylvania will take the lead in recommending a national con- 
vention. It is the only plan calculated to conciliate and harmonize the 
Republican party throuKbout the Union." Niles's " Register," Vol. XXV, 
p. 306. About the same time, too, some body of delegates in the North- 
ern Liberties (now a part of Philadelphia) resolved that "a national con- 
vention composed of delegates from each congressional district presents 
at once the most practicable and the most republican mode of effecting 
a nomination for the presidency." " Franklin Gazette " of January 13, 1824. 
Three years later (January 13, 1827), Van Buren wrote from Washington 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 301 

which was destined to be realized in a few years, but which 
the lack of transportation facilities then rendered impractica- 
ble. 

The other and more modest idea of a State Convention 
for nominating purposes 30 was also at that date far from 
fully developed but took strongly, and it will be found that 
the body met at the time suggested. In the steps leading up 
to it, moreover, events occurred which are of great moment 
to us here and which exercised a vital influence on the hopes 
of all the presidential candidates. 

Calhoun's popularity continued long in Pennsylvania, and 
I think there can be little doubt that down to a late date he was 
generally regarded as the man most likely to receive the sup- 
port of that leading State. But, as time wore on, Jackson's 
strength grew steadily. He had the backing of several most 
astute political leaders throughout the country, and they suc- 
ceeded wonderfully in pressing him forward as the candidate 
of the common people, while the glamor of his dazzling mili- 
tary achievement served to attract the support of thousands. 
Indorsements of him began to be made at Democratic meetings 
here and there throughout the State, and the influence of these 
was probably not much diminished by the occasional com- 
plaint of the Franklin Gazette early in 1824 that these meet- 
ings were noisy and " irregular." 

Doubtless they were noisy and often unorthodox, but they 

to Thomas Ritchie, calling- attention to an article in the "Argus" on a 
national convention and then going on to say that the measure will soon 
he brought forward here, " It was first suggested to me by the Vice- 
President; he and Mr. Ingham of Pennsylvania are the only persons with 
whom I have as yet conversed." Letter in Van Buren Papers in Library 
of Congress. On" the general subject, see "The First National Nominating 
Convention," by S. E. Morrison in "American Historical Review," Vol. 
XVTI, (July, 1912), pp. 744-63, which cites "The First National Nominat- 
ing Convention," by John S. Murdoch in ibid.. Vol. I, p. 6So, and l.ue- 
techer's " Political "Machirerv," Chans. Ill and IV. 

30 Such Conventions had been held a number of years earlier. Some 
account of their development is to be found in " The Development of the 
Nominating Convention in Rhode Island," by Neil Andrews; Reprinted 
from the Publications of the Rhode Island Historical Society; Providence, 
Rhode Island, 1804. " Nominating Conventions in Pennsylvania," by 
Joseph S. Walton. "American Historical Review." Vol. II (January, 1897), 
pp. 262 ct scq., " Pennsylvania Politics early in the [Nineteenth! Century," 
by William M. Meigs, " Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biographv," 
Vol. XVII, pp. 485 et seq. 



302 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

were evidently the expression of the uprising of the American 
Democracy. As the Jackson tide kept thus forever rising 
and spreading, it was, no doubt, a cause of great anxiety to 
Calhoun and his friends, despite the fact that down to a late 
date the Republican continued to insist that Calhoun's chances 
had never been better. His organ could of course say nothing 
else, but there was the sound of fate in those small but ever- 
growing voices in favor of Jackson. 

The latter's friends grew bolder, too, as time wore on. At 
a meeting held in Carlisle, apparently in January, 1824, and 
called by Calhoun's friends, resolutions in his favor were 
offered, but it is said that some member then moved to amend 
by striking out Calhoun's name and inserting that of Jackson, 
and that this was at once carried by acclamation. 31 

Whether this incident actually occurred or not, the follow- 
ing is certain. At some convention in Nether Providence, 
Delaware Co., on February 7, a committee was appointed to 
prepare resolutions, and they reported one resolution to ap- 
prove of the proposed Convention at Harrisburg on March 4, 
and another to instruct the delegates to support the candidates 
nominated by the Congressional Caucus, if one should be 
held, and if not, then such men as would be most likely to 
represent the wishes of Democrats. One can see here the 
fine hand of some non-committal politician, but rebellion was 
afoot. The first resolution was soon unanimously passed, but 
Geo. G. Leiper offered as a substitute for the second a reso- 
lution in words approving of General Jackson for President, 
and this was adopted by the meeting. 32 

Meanwhile, still other events were taking place, which had 
in the end a great influence in crushing Calhoun's hopes for 

81 Parton's "Jackson," Vol. Ill, pp. 28, 29. I have been unable to find 
this instance in the files of the various newspapers I have gone over, 
but they are almost always imperfect, and the absence of an item of news 
from the papers of that day is little evidence that the incident in question 
did not occur. Perhaps, on the other hand, Parton wrote on the authority 
of some verbal informant, and this informant's memory retained an in- 
accurate impression of the Delaware County instance mentioned in the 
text. 

32 "Franklin Gazette" of February II, 1824. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 3°3 

that year. The question of caucus or no caucus was actively 
under discussion. On January 6, 1824, fourteen of the Penn- 
sylvania delegation in Congress published 33 a notice against a 
caucus and intimated that they would not attend, if one were 
held, and a month later a card, signed by twenty-four members 
from numerous States, appeared in the Intelligencer, in which 
they announced that they had been asked by many of their 
colleagues to ascertain the number of members who disap- 
proved of holding a caucus and had found that, of the total 
number of 261, there were 181 " who deem it inexpedient, 
under existing circumstances, to meet in caucus ' : for that 
purpose. 34 

This ought to have been a hard blow to the advocates of a 
caucus; but the very same day (February 7th) another notice 
was published in the Intelligencer, — signed by eleven mem- 
bers from as many different States, announcing that a caucus 
would be held on Saturday, February 14th. When this meet- 
ing came together at the time appointed, it was at once ap- 
parent that Crawford's friends controlled it. Every effort 
had been made to secure a large attendance. Macon was 
pressed in vain to come, and they tried even to " draw out " 
an expression of opinion from the aged Jefferson. A week 
before the meeting it was hoped that as many as 100 would 
attend, 35 but there were actually only 66 members present 
in person and two by proxy. 

On the only ballot Crawford received 64 votes as against 2 
for Adams, one for Jackson and one for Macon. Gallatin 
was selected for Vice-President, and it is worthy of note that 
Van Buren attended, possibly guided to some extent by the 
politician's fondness for that form of orthodoxy which he 
calls regularity. He had not yet come to be a supporter of 

33 Adams ("Memoirs," Vol. VI, pp. 242, 243) says that this movement 
originated with Ingham and Rogers, who had been leaders in bringing 
Calhoun forward. See also ibid., p. 235. 

3 *"The National Intelligencer" of January 15th and of February 7th, 
10th, and 12th, 1824. The " U. S. Gazette" of February 9th reprints from 
the "Intelligencer" of February 6th both the notice for and that against 
the caucus. 

85 Adams's " Gallatin," pp. 593-96. 



304 



LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 



Jackson. There was some hissing in the galleries on the an- 
nouncement of the vote for President. 36 

Looking back to-day not much less than a hundred years, 
it seems that such an evidently rump convention ought to 
have carried little weight,"' 7 especially as fully one-half of 
the vote for Crawford was said to come from the two States 
of New York and Virginia. But the outlook was evidently 
thought at first blush to be very serious, and the movement had, 
at least, the advantage of regularity and might perhaps have 
resulted in concentrating popular support upon its nominee. 
It will shortly be shown, too, from a letter of Calhoun that 
the " Caucussers " were thought to have a scheme for the im- 
mediate endorsement of Crawford in two leading States and 
hoped thus to sweep the party on to his. support. 

The troubles in the Republican camp were all owing to 
a surplus of candidates and the resulting division. Concen- 
tration was imperative, and among those opposed to Craw- 
ford Jackson had gained so much support in Pennsylvania 
that there could by that time be little doubt that he was the 
most popular man in the State. Accordingly when, only four 
days after the Crawford Caucus, a meeting was held in Phila- 
delphia on February 18 to revise the proceedings of the ward 
meetings, which had appointed delegates to the coming State 
Convention, events occurred of the utmost importance to us 
here. George M. Dallas, then a young man with a long career 
ahead of him, attended the meeting and was known to have 
been a leading supporter of Calhoun for the Presidency, but 
he introduced resolutions outspoken in favor of Jackson. 

Dallas was at the time a candidate for the mission to Mexico, 
and an unsuccessful effort had been recently made by Ingham 
to induce the Secretary of State to withdraw his opposition 
to the appointment. 38 He was also said to be seeking an ap- 

3ft " The National Intelligencer" of February 17, 1824. "The Washing- 
ton Republican " of February 14th, as quoted in the " U. S. Gazette " of 
February 18, 1S24, has it that there was universal hissing, and one other 
newspaper, which I have seen but failed to note, admitted the occurrence 
of slight hissing. 

37 A writer of the time tells us that the nomination soon injured Craw- 
ford more than it helped him : Cobb's " Leisure Labors," pp. 207, 208. 

38 John Quincy Adams's " Memoirs," Vol. VI, pp. 243-46. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 305 

pointment in the State, and of course his action in the con- 
vention was by some put down to interested motives ; but there 
is no reason to seek so far. The very recent caucus and the 
supposed plans of its supporters had evidently alarmed him 
and his friends, and it will shortly be seen that he had already 
informed Calhoun that the latter's cause was lost in Pennsyl- 
vania. 

The resolutions offered by Dallas called upon Democrats 
to sacrifice their personal predilections and to " unite in one 
harmonious and simultaneous movement " for the election of 
Jackson, and further recited that " it is expedient, in order 
signally to defeat a project so subversive of fundamental prin- 
ciples [as the caucus nomination of Crawford] to concentrate 
the energy of all sound Democrats in favor of a single illus- 
trious individual." In his speech offering the resolutions, 
Dallas spoke of the caucus as formidable and then said: 

It concentrated for its favorite candidate the force of a des- 
perate and heedless faction ; and it could only be encountered 
effectually by a similar concentration of its opponents. We must 
cease to contend for persons ; principles which lie at the root 
of our politics were involved ; and we were bound to make com- 
mon cause against the caucus, in the mode most likely to achieve 
a signal triumph. . . . 

Another paper of the day reported him as follows : 

The subject of deliberation was one of too general impor- 
tance and of too much national interest to justify any indul- 
gence of personal partiality or dislike. . . . He was about 
tendering to what he believed was the good of the country and 
the preservation of the Republican party, a sacrifice of individual 
predilection, the magnitude of which his own particular friends, 
and perhaps his fellow citizens at large, could easily appreciate. 
A crisis had, however, arrived, which appealed forcibly to the 
patriotic feelings of every man attached to the institutions of 
the country, to their safety from foreign aggression and from 
domestic usurpation. . . . He adverted to the caucus lately held 
at Washington. ... It was the caucus of a miserable and in- 
fatuated minority. . . . One entire half of the vote given to the 



306 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

nominated candidate — could it be credited ! — came from two 
States only, New York and Virginia. 

Mr. Dallas said that his partiality for one distinguished states- 
man as a presidential candidate had always been avowed, and 
was known to his fellow citizens. His respect and attachment 
for that individual, his admiration of his principles, his perfect 
confidence in his virtues and abilities, and his deep sense of his 
services to this country, were undiminished and could never 
change. But predilections must be sacrificed : the cause of the 
nation, the cause of the democratic party, were, in his opinion, 
at stake : we must forego subordinate differences of opinion and 
rally energetically on him who, while he possessed every quali- 
fication that can be desired in an American pilot, would lead us 
by his merited popularity, through the storm. 39 

In one sense Dallas's step was a fateful one .for Calhoun, 
but in reality it only recognized that which the growth of 
popular opinion had already brought about in Pennsylvania. 
Niles's " Register," in reporting the matter, wrote that it was 
understood that Dallas's action " expressed the sentiment of 
the friends of Mr. Calhoun in Pennsylvania generally," and 
the same result would inevitably have occurred in a few days, 
in any event, at the Harrisburg Convention. The Republi- 
can in Washington had a difficult task to explain its position, 
but met the disaster with dignity. In the leading editorial, 
February 23, 1824, it wrote: 

We publish, this day, the Proceedings in the Town-Meeting 
at Philadelphia, with the observation made by Mr. Dallas on 
the occasion ; from which it may be inferred, that it is no longer 
doubtful that the whole political and moral influence of Pennsyl- 
vania will be concentrated on General Jackson. The movement, 
we believe, was wholly unpremeditated and spontaneous. Infor- 
mation had just been received of the proceedings of the partial 
caucus ; and it being evident that the object of the caucus was to 
force Mr. Crawford upon Pennsylvania, immediate concentra- 
tion on Mr. Calhoun or General Jackson, who alone divided the 
State, became necessary, in order to defeat the success of the 

so "The National Intelligencer" of February 24th, 1824. "The Demo- 
cratic Press " of February 21. quoting from the " Franklin Gazette. 
Niles's " Register," Vol. XXV, p. 408. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 307 

caucus scheme. It was found that this concentration could be 
most readily made upon General Jackson, and the friends of Mr. 
Calhoun, with that disinterestedness which has characterized them 
through every stage of the canvass of the Presidential question, 
determined to sacrifice personal predilection to the good of the 
cause. The concentration of the Republican forces accordingly 
took place on General Jackson, which places him out of the 
reach of competition in that great state, and leaves not a shadow 
of hope that the caucus nomination here can have the slightest 
influence in Pennsylvania. This movement destroys the last 
hope of the caucussers. Their scheme, undoubtedly, was to ob- 
tain, without delay, the confirmation of the caucus nomination, 
by the Legislatures of Virginia and New York, which had 
previously pledged themselves to support the movement at Wash- 
ington ; and taking advantage of the distraction in Pennsylvania, 
between the friends of Mr. Calhoun and General Jackson, they 
calculated to operate on the Convention at Harrisburg, in favor 
of Mr. Crawford, by means of the nomination thus confirmel 
at Richmond and Albany. The scheme was ingenious, and might, 
by possibility, have succeeded, had not the friends of Mr. Cal- 
houn made the noble and disinterested sacrifice which they 
have made. At this result we heartily rejoice, as every well 
wisher of the country must; while it is impossible not to feel a 
deep regret that it has been found thus necessary, for the com- 
mon good, to diminish the prospects of that candidate (whose 
prospects were otherwise so fair) with whose elevation we have 
ever considered the best interests of the country to be con- 
nected. . . . 

Better evidence of the sentiments of Calhoun himself upon 
this shipwreck of his hopes is to be found in a letter 40 of Feb- 
ruary 27, written from Washington to his friend Maxcy, in 
which he says : 

I have just read your letter enclosing the Penna circular. The 
movement at Philadelphia was as unexpected to me as it could 
have been to any of my friends. 41 It has produced here the deep- 
est excitement. Mr. Dallas had informed me about a week be- 

40 Maxcy-Markoe Papers, in Library of Congress. 

41 J. R. Poinsett, then a close political friend of Callioun, wrote on Feb- 
ruary 26 to Joseph Hopkinson ( ?) to precisely the same effect. Hopkin- 
son Collection of letters in possession of Edward Hopkinson, Esq., of 
Philadelphia. 



308 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

fore that he thought the cause was lost in Penna and that we 
should have to yield there, at the Harrisburg convention. Tho' 
prepared for a defeat [at] Harrisburg, no movement in advance 
was anticipated. What took place was unpremeditated and under 
a sudden impulse received from the caucus nomination here, and 
the loss of Berks which decided the contest in favor of Genl. 
Jackson in Penna. I have no doubt the motives were pure ; and 
tho' ill timed as it regards Dallas and our cause, yet not un- 
favorable to the great point of defeating the Radicals. 

Our friends have come to the conclusion that we ought to hold 
to our position, and wait events. It is thought to be the best in 
every point of view whether it regards the country, or our- 
selves. Nor will there be much difficulty. South Carolina and 
Jersey can easily be retained as they are. In North Carolina, the 
friends of Jackson will not start another ticket, with the under- 
standing that the one formed will support him, should I have no 
prospect. In Penna a ticket will be formed favorable to me as 
a second choice, and the same course will be pursued in Louisiana, 
Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. In Maryland it 
is highly desirable that my friends should run in as many dis- 
tricts as possible, taking Jackson if necessary as a second choice, 
or taking position simply against the caucus with the determina- 
tion to support the strongest. 

Jackson's friends indicate a disposition to add my name to his 
ticket in Penna as V. P. We have determined in relation to it 
to leave events to take their own course, that is to leave the de- 
termination to his friends. Standing as I do before the American 
people, I can look to no other position than that which I now 
occupy. 

Had Penna decided favourably, the prospect would have been 
most fair. Taking the U. S. together I never had a fairer pros- 
pect than on the day we lost the State. 

Two weeks later, on March 4, the State Nominating Con- 
vention met at Harrisburg and was largely attended. There 
were present 125 delegates, representing all the counties but 
four. No effort in Calhoun's favor seems to have been made, 
and doubtless this and the Convention's action as to him were 
in pursuance of the understanding between the Jackson and 
Calhoun forces described in Calhoun's letter. A motion to in- 
dorse Crawford was overwhelmingly defeated by a vote of 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 309 

only 2 Yeas to 123 Nays, and then a resolution in favor of 
Jackson was carried by 124 to 1. Calhoun was nominated 
for Vice-President, receiving 87 votes, to 10 for Clay, 10 for 
Gallatin, and 17 scattering. 42 Before very long, too, Calhoun 
was taken up by the friends of Adams as their candidate for 
Vice-President, and thus he was rapidly being forced toward 
second position. 

His "Autobiography" tells us that his name "was finally 
withdrawn in compliance with his wishes," and there is no 
reason to question the truth of this statement, 43 but it is im- 
possible to ascertain the date at which the withdrawal was 
made. Probably the process was a gradual one and forced 
upon him by the logic of events. It has been seen that Dal- 
las's action at the meeting in February was unexpected to 
Calhoun, and that he proposed still to keep himself in the 
field after that time. It was indeed hardly in human nature 
for him to do otherwise, fired as he was by an honorable 
ambition to be President, even though he was but forty-two 
and could therefore well afford to wait, — so far as mere 
years were concerned. There is, moreover, evidence that his 
hopes continued for a number of months yet. John Quincy 
Adams, for instance, though he thought in April, 1824, that 
Calhoun was at heart for him and was only aiming to secure 
the Vice-Presidency for himself, was apparently shaken in 
this belief as late as the ensuing August, and even then was 
in doubt as to Calhoun's plans. 44 

The campaign of 1824-25 was a bitter struggle, but there 
is no need here of going much further into its details. After 
Calhoun was taken up by the friends of both Adams and 

< 2 " United States Gazette" of March 8 and 10, 1824; "The National 
Intelligencer " of March 10, 1824. 

43 Calhoun said in a speech at a dinner given him at Abbeville on 
May 27, 1825 : " From first to last, one leading principle governed me, 
that the voice of the people should prevail. ... I did not hesitate, by 
withdrawing, to contract the sphere of election, and thereby to endeavor 
as far as in me lay, to terminate the election by the people, without its 
being referred to the house of representatives." Niles's " Register," Vol. 
XXVIII, pp. 256-67. Mr. Jervey has also been unable to determine at 
just what time Calhoun withdrew, and thinks his popularity in South Caro- 
lina was much diminished at about this time, and that he was the object 
of many attacks. " Life of Hayne," pp. 173-77 • 

** " Memoirs," Vol. VI, pp. 290, 292, 407. 



310 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Jackson for the Vice-Presidency and withdrew from the strug- 
gle for the highest office, the result as to him became a fore- 
gone conclusion, and he was triumphantly chosen by 182 
electoral votes out of a total of 261. There was, however, 
no election of a President on the popular vote, and the House 
of Representatives then chose John Quincy Adams. 

Some glimpses of the struggle thus terminated reach us 
from Mrs. Smith, who has already been quoted. She knew 
in 1823 that Calhoun and Adams were not such friends as 
they had been, and in January, 1825, when the choice of 
President was about to come on in the House, she wrote her 
sister : 

You must know society is now divided into separate battalions 
as it were. Mrs. Adams collected a large party and went one 
night [to the theatre], Mrs. Calhoun another, so it was thought 
by our friends that Mrs. Crawford should go, too, to show our 
strength. . . . The fate of the election is as uncertain as ever. 45 

Mrs. Smith, despite her friendship for the Calhouns, was 
a partisan of Crawford for the Presidency, but it is not ap- 
parent why Calhoun should then take an active part. He was 
not a candidate for the office and had already been elected to 
the Vice-Presidency by the popular vote. 

On March 4, 1825, Calhoun took the oath of office as Vice- 
President and was widely looked upon as a leading candi- 
date for the Presidency four years thence. But when that 
period had gone by, as will be shown later, he once more found 
it necessary to stand aside. Jackson's strength was far too 
great to be stemmed. Calhoun was then taken up as Vice- 
President by Jackson's friends and was once more elected 
(in 1829) to that office. Again this time he seemed to have 
every prospect of succeeding to the Presidency, but the allur- 
ing prize was destined never to be his. 

These events are a few years ahead of the time with which 
we are now mainly concerned, but are introduced here because 
of their bearing on Calhoun's yea/s as Vice-President. In 
the same connection, it will be well to quote from one more 

« Mrs. Smith's " First Forty Years " etc., pp. 163, 170, 171. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 311 

letter of Mrs. Smith, giving some view of his idea of po- 
litical struggles. On January 30, 1829, after his second elec- 
tion as Vice-President, and after Jackson had triumphed over 
Adams, she wrote to her son : 

I . . . told you we were going to have a small party, a small, 
but very select and agreeable one it was. Mr. and Mrs. Calhoun, 
she as friendly and social, he as charming and interesting as ever. 
. . . Mr. Calhoun [spoke with me] about the late election and 
the characters of some of the leaders on both sides ..." What 
a pity it is," observed Mr. Calhoun to me, " that all the ladies 
cannot carry it off (their defeat) as charmingly as Mrs. Porter 
[Gen. Porter's wife], but some I hear take it much to heart. . . . 
After all," said Mr. Calhoun, " these things are, as it were, the 
mere charity of war and triumph of defeat, change sides and 
every one takes his turn, so that one ought not to feel great eleva- 
tion or depression, but in either case take the result with moder- 
ation, but above all, as far as possible to avoid mingling personal 
with political feelings. There is nothing from which I have 
really suffered in the late conflict of parties, but the division it 
has created between me and personal friends ; as for the enmity 
and abuse of political opponents, that is nothing — wounds which 
leave no scar. 48 

The period of nearly eight years during which Calhoun 
held the office of Vice-President was of vital importance to 
him and marks, indeed, the turning point of his career. It 
will be found that these years contained many a disappoint- 
ment, some situations of immense difficulty for a statesman, 
and embraced a time when his mind must have been dis- 
traught by doubts. They ushered in, moreover, the long term 
during which his nation-wide popularity was largely broken 
and he came to represent only a section of the country. 

It seems to have been generally agreed that he made an 
admirable presiding officer of the Senate. Regular in at- 
tendance, he himself wrote 47 that during the long and la- 
borious session of 1825-26 he was not absent from his post 
for a moment, " and often remained in the chair, without 

46 Mrs. Smith's " First Forty Years " etc., pp. 268-270. 
* T Calhoun as " Onslow," in " Works," Vol. VI, p. 347- 



3 i2 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

leaving it, from eight to twelve hours." Dignified in manner, 
probably feeling the lofty character of the duties belonging to 
the body, he imparted some of this feeling to members, and 
they in general responded to his lead. But it will shortly be 
shown that there was one member who formed a conspicuous 
exception to this rule. 

Calhoun introduced the custom of addressing the members 
of the body as " Senators " instead of " Gentlemen," as had 
been the practice theretofore, and this has prevailed ever since. 
He always made a point of being at his post of duty, con- 
sidering that the office he held, as well as all others, called 
for diligent service on the part of the incumbent, and he only 
absented himself near the end of the session, so as to permit 
the election of a President pro tempore. Far different had 
been the course of his predecessors, who had let the office 
become very much of a sinecure. 48 

There have, perhaps, been few Presidencies during which 
the mere game of politics was played to so large an extent 
as during that of John Quincy Adams. And this was probably 
inevitable from the surrounding circumstances. It was a 
period of transition and of purely personal politics, and it is 
curious to think to-day that John Quincy Adams owed his 
election to the party of Jefferson. A man further removed 
than Adams from the views of the founder of the Republicans 
could hardly be found; and he was scarcely in office before he 
broke away entirely from their principles. Among many 
strongly Federalistic policies advocated by him, the Panama 
Mission was a favorite one; and it was urged, moreover, 
coupled with extravagant claims of executive power in the 
matter. Certainly far from Jeffersonian in its nature, it came 
soon, too, to touch on the tender subject of slavery. The 
South was already much alarmed on the subject of the blacks 
in general and wanted little to do with South American 
countries which admitted them to an equality. The proposed 
mission came hence to be the subject upon which lengthy dis- 
cussions were had of slavery in all its aspects. 

48 Josiah Quincy's "Figures of the Past." pp. 262, 263; and see also 
(e.g.) W. H. Sparks's " Memoirs of Fifty Years," p. 55. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 313 

At this time, the South had a doughty champion in John 
Randolph of Roanoke. Long in the political field, with as 
bitter a tongue as is often vouchsafed to the sons of men, 
foreseeing more clearly than almost any one of his contem- 
poraries the threatening ruin of the then Southern civiliza- 
tion, and utterly uncompromising, Randolph was by this time 
a man past fifty years, and long habits of intemperance had 
had their usual effect on a mind always erratic but which 
even yet had flashes of brilliancy. 

He was sent to the Senate from Virginia in 1825 and soon 
became one of the very first leaders of the opposition. It was 
said of him, with probable truth, that he did more than any 
other single man to break down the administration. 49 In 
the course of his many abusive harangues, which were dis- 
jointed and disconnected to a degree, — and often openly 
accentuated by liberal potations of spirits while on the floor, — 
he undoubtedly went very far beyond any proper rules of 
decorum in debate, while the sting of his words was often 
burning and must at times have caused positive pain to those 
at whom they were aimed. Possibly, too, this was increased 
by the fact that the half-insane mind of this diseased man, in 
pouring out his diatribes, would still not infrequently clothe 
them in language which genius alone can lend, as well as 
flash out the soundest views of some phase of public affairs. 
One of the worst of these attacks of Randolph was con- 
tained in his speech 50 of March 30, 1826, on Executive Pow- 
ers. It grew out of Adams's course as to the proposed Pan- 
ama Mission, and was fairly ribald as to the President and his 
Secretary of State. The latter was compared to " Black 
George," while the former became " Blifil," the Puritanical 
hypocrite and swindler ; and their alleged corrupt bargain was 
depicted in language clear enough, despite the fact that no 
human being could possibly unravel the wordy tangle and dis- 
cover a thread to the speech. Clay, as is well known, resorted 
to a challenge, and there was held ere long between him and 

49 Vance in the House of Representatives on January 29, 1828. Adams's 
" Randolph," p. 200. 

50 Congressional Debates, Vol. II, Part I, 1825-26, pp. 389-404; 398, 401. 



3H LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Randolph what Benton calls the last " high-toned duel " he 
ever witnessed. With this, however, we are not here con- 
cerned. 

This speech and others of a like nature made by Randolph 
during his two years in the Senate constitute, of course, the 
instances above referred to in which the dignity of the body 
was not maintained during Calhoun's Vice-Presidency; and 
the chair soon came to be violently abused in many quarters 
for not calling the unruly member to order. The question was 
evidently widely discussed among Senators as well as outside 
the body and, when amendments of the rules were shortly 
passed to rescind those sections that left to the presiding officer 
the appointment of committees and the supervision of the 
Journal, Calhoun took advantage, — on April 15, — of the op- 
portunity to explain his position in regard to the matter in 
general. 

After quoting the words of the 6th and 7th Rules, he said : 

The chair . . . has bestowed its most deliberate and anxious 
attention, by day and by night, on the question of the extent 
of its powers, under a correct construction of these rules, and 
has settled in the conviction, that the right to call to order, on 
questions touching the latitude or freedom of debate, belongs ex- 
clusively to the members of this body, and not to the chair. The 
power of the presiding officer, on these great points, is an ap- 
pellate power only; and consequently, the duties of the chair 
commence when a Senator is called to order by a Senator. 



51 



The subject was soon bruited in the newspapers, and some 
writer under the name of " A Western Senator " defended 
the Vice-President. Then ere long a series of articles over 
the signature of " Patrick Henry " began to appear in the 

51 Congressional Debates, Vol. II, Part I, 1825-26, pp. 572-573- The 
6th and 7th Rules, there quoted, read : " When a member shall be called 
to order, he shall sit down, until the President shall have determined 
whether he is in order or not ; and every question of order shall be de- 
cided by the President, without debate ; but if there be a doubt in his 
mind, he may call for the sense of the Senate. 

* If the member be called to order, for words spoken, the exceptionable 
words shall be immediately taken down, in writing, that the President 
may be better enabled to judge of the matter." 

The rules contained no other provision upon the subject. 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 3 J 5 

National Journal of Washington, 52 most strongly taking the 
opposite side. The writer of the articles wielded an able and 
a most caustic pen, and it was apparently generally assumed, 
then as well as later, that the President of the United States 
was the real author. Calhoun was openly accused of pervert- 
ing the Rules and neglecting to do his plain duty in the mat- 
ter, in order to attain the ends of his own ambition, and 
vituperation was poured upon him from the beginning to the 
end of the series. 

" Patrick Henry's " first letter was answered by " Onslow ' 
in two numbers of The National Intelligencer, 53 and here again 
it seems to have been generally assumed that the author was a 
person in high standing, — none less than the alleged culprit 
himself, Calhoun. " Onslow " was quite as full of vitupera- 
tion as " Patrick Henry," and it was certainly a unique sight 
thus to see these two high officers charged in turn with perver- 
sions and falsifyings, and the motives and conduct of each 

52 The five letters of " Patrick Henry " are to be found in the issues 
of May I, June 7, and August 4, 5, and 8, 1826. They were also later 
printed in pamphlet form and make a pamphlet of over fifty pages. There 
is, so far as I can find, no direct evidence whatsoever that John Quincy 
Adams was the author of " Patrick Henry," and Mr. Worthington C. Ford, 
who is editing " Adams's Works," has kindly written me in advance that 
he thinks it "safe to reject the whole story" of Adams's share in the 
publication. But I cannot escape the conclusion that Adams had a large 
hand in the matter. " Onslow " publicly stated and assumed that fact 
("Calhoun's Works," Vol. VI, p. 322). Calhoun's " Autobiography " of 
1843 (p. 31) again does the same thing, speaking of the author as "a 
writer of great power (supposed to be the President himself) "; and 
Cralle, in editing Calhoun's works, writes (" Works," Vol. VI, p. 322) as 
if such were the ascertained and known fact. See also Jenkins's " Life," 
p. 159. So far as I know, Adams did not at any time either deny the 
charge or refer to it, — either publicly or in his " Diary." Perhaps internal 
evidence is not altogether wanting. The great length (over fifty pages) 
and labored argument are very like Adams, and the allegation that the 
duty of the Vice-President to call to order rested on " deeper and holier 
foundations " than any Rule of the Senate, is just such as he would have 
made. Some persons are, I think, of opinion that the articles were actually 
composed by Philip Richard Fendall (then a Clerk in the Office of the 
Secretary of State), and the publication supervised by Adams; and per- 
haps this is as near the truth as it is possible to-day to get. 

53 There were three numbers of " Onslow." The first was originally sent 
to the " National Journal," but was refused publication. It was then 
sent to the "National Intelligencer" and printed in the issue of May 
20. The two remaining numbers, — the more important ones,— are con- 
tained in the " Intelligencer " of June 27 and 29 and in " Calhoun's 
Works," Vol. VI, pp. 322-348. The first number is not printed in the 
" Works." 



316 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

attacked in about as high a style of invective as is often used 
among the cultivated ; while both authors assumed, — and the 
public, at least, thought it knew, — that the President and 
Vice-President were the actual authors. " Patrick Henry's " 
later numbers were even formally addressed to " Hon. John 
C Calhoun, Vice-President/' etc. 

The main contention of "' Patrick Henry " was that, under 
the constitutional provision that made the Vice-President the 
presiding officer of the Senate, it was ex vi termini his duty 
to preserve decorum and of his own motion to call a member 
to order for words improperly spoken in debate. Calhoun 
answered that this view neglected another provision to the 
effect that " each House may determine the Rules of its pro- 
ceedings, punish its members for disorderly behaviour, and, 
with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member." With 
this provision conferring an express authority on the Senate 
to make its own rules, it is impossible, he argued, to sup- 
pose that the power of calling to order was intended to be 
vested in the Vice-President. The Senate had, moreover, 
enacted rules of order and yet had not made any such provision, 
while the Rules of the House were express that the Speaker 
should call to order. 

In his later letters, " Patrick Henry " maintained that the 
6th and 7th Rules were plainly intended to have application 
only when a member should call to order, and purposely left 
that duty with the presiding officer in all cases where members 
failed to do so. This obligation of the Vice-President, he 
wrote, " rested on deeper and holier foundations " than any 
rule of the Senate and could not be taken away from him by 
the body. He also cited Jefferson's Manual, some language 
of which tended to bear out his general view ; and he con- 
tended that Calhoun had in fact called another member to 
order. The argument was undoubtedly labored, and ran into 
great length. 

Calhoun's whole discussion of the matter was contained in 
three papers covering twenty-six smaller pages, and he never 
even answered the last four letters of his opponent, despite 
their effort to draw him on. His main argument rested 



ADAMS AND CALHOUN 317 

on the express power conferred by the Constitution upon the 
Senate to make its own rules, but he also maintained that it 
could not be supposed that the Fathers had designed to place 
one man over the Senate, armed with such a weapon, and then, 
more suo, dilated on the awful tyranny that might result in 
some instances from admitting the theory of " Patrick Henry." 
The one-man power figured largely throughout the discussion, 
and Calhoun was careful to limit what he said to the specific 
point at issue, — of the power to call to order upon ques- 
tions touching the latitude or freedom of debate. 

The marked difference between the powers conferred by the 
rules of the two houses on the Speaker and Vice-President 
respectively, was emphasized by " Onslow," and the reason 
alleged to be that in the one case the officer is absolutely re- 
sponsible for his conduct to the body under him, while in the 
other he is not. The close analogy on this point between 
the Commons and the House of Lords was of course also 
mentioned. The alleged instance on his own part of calling 
to order he distinguished, and showed further that the mem- 
ber in question agreed with his view and did not think himself 
unfairly dealt with. Jefferson's authority against him could 
not be entirely cleared away. 

It seems to the present writer that Calhoun had certainly 
the better of the discussion and that " Patrick Henry " was 
rash in assuming such large results as flowing from a bald 
provision that a certain officer should be the presiding officer 
but he was doubtless stung to madness by the outrageous lan- 
guage of Randolph and the evident crumbling to pieces of 
his Administration. Calhoun wrote later that his two papers 
"so completely demolished the argument of ' Patrick Henry' 
as to turn the tide in his favor." And such seems to have 
been the opinion at the time. In 1828, too, while he was 
still Vice-President, a new rule was passed by the Senate, ex- 
pressly conferring on the presiding officer the power to call 
to order; and here again Calhoun finds his justification, add- 
ing that the new rule was enacted " with an almost unanimous 
approval of his decision." 54 

5 * "Autobiography," pp. 31, 32, Jenkins's "Life," p. 159. O'Neall's 
" Bench and Bar of South Carolina," Vol. II, p. 300. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 

Calhoun's Change of View and Causes Leading Thereto — 
Champion of State Rights — The Missouri Struggle — Early 
Abolition Proposals — The Tariff. 

During the years we have been recently considering, Cal- 
houn had gone through that great change of opinion as to 
public affairs which has been several times referred to in these 
pages. His early views have been already seen, and he evi- 
dently adhered in the main to these, until about the time when 
his Vice-Presidency began in 1825; but the close of his first 
term in that office, in 1829, found him holding quite different 
opinions. 

By the latter date, though his change was not known far and 
wide among the masses throughout the country, yet his inti- 
mates and public men in general, — in South Carolina at least, 
— knew very well that he had come to think a tariff for 
protection unconstitutional and that he had formulated the 
method of practically applying the doctrine of Nullification 
or State Veto. They knew, too, that he thought the time was 
nearly come when the Southern States should interpose to 
arrest the progress of what he and they thought a most op- 
pressive course of legislation. From this time on, he rapidly 
drifted into the position of the champion par excellence of 
State Rights. 

It has been said glibly and many times over that disappointed 
ambition, — the evident shipwreck of his Presidential aspira- 
tion, — led to his change, 1 but the reader will find that he had 
actually formulated the doctrines of his later life and put them 
down in black and white, as well as announced them widely 
among his political acquaintance, at a time when he had every 

1 Jackson so charged in his famous Proclamation of 1832. 

3i8 






THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 319 

reason to count upon the Presidency as likely to fall to him in 
due time. By 1828 Jackson had indeed grown too popular 
for Calhoun to think of contesting against him; but the 
General was expected to serve but four years, — from 1829 
to 1833, — and Calhoun had been selected for the second office, 
with excellent prospects for the succession in 1833. Not 
until nearly the middle of Jackson's first term did Calhoun's 
Presidential hopes meet with disaster, and he had actually 
undergone his conversion during John Quincy Adams's Presi- 
dency, — two or more years before Jackson had even attained 
the office, and hence several years before the disappointment 
of Calhoun's ambition came about. 2 Indeed, in regard to pro- 
tection, on which the contest actually first arose, it will be 
shown that his change had begun as early as 1820. 

It is a difficult chapter in this Life to write, for the silence 
almost of the tomb is what reaches us for a long time from 
Calhoun. He occupied the Vice-Presidency during the greater 
part of the period, an office which not only did not call for 
expressions of opinion on his part but the proprieties of which 
demanded that he should be slow to blurt out new views that 
might break in upon him, which might yet turn out to be but 
half-fledged fancies. Nor is this all: his private corre- 
spondence long throws no light upon the subject. He was a 
reticent man as to a matter of this kind, and evidently did not 
write, nor probably talk, much about it until his mind was 
well made up. 

We are hence left to the general history of the period in 
order to find out the earlier causes leading to his change, but 
I think we shall find them plain enough and almost com- 
pelling his course. It will be necessary, too, to go back to 
some extent to the very foundation of our government; for 
some of the controlling influences date back to that time, and 
even earlier. 

The truth is that when the present Constitution was drawn 
and our Union formed, in 1787-89, the country brought to- 

2 Calhoun himself touches slightly upon all this in his speech of Feb- 
ruary 15, and 16, 1833, on the Force Bill. "Works," Vol. II, pp. 216-18. 
See also " Autobiography," p. 34. 



320 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

gether contained two widely different civilizations. The frigid 
North of the Puritans and the sub-tropical South with its slav- 
ery and hordes of negroes had little in common other than op- 
position of both to the mother country and an evident need 
to unite for protection. Their economical and social systems 
were radically different, and each section formed a fairly solid 
unit within itself. The North occupied a large and united 
territory, throughout which much the same civilization pre- 
vailed; while the South stretched along the lower Atlantic, 
back to the mountains and to some extent beyond them, and 
all this contiguous region of theirs was based upon another 
and strikingly different system, of which slavery was an in- 
tegral and controlling element. 

This difference cropped out as early as the Constitutional 
Convention of 1787, and again in 1790 it seems that the 
admission of Kentucky into the Union was delayed by the 
North, until Vermont should be ready 3 to serve as a Northern 
counterweight to the new Southern sister. Probably it was 
the same cause, also, that led the elder Adams at some time 
during his Presidency to refuse the use of his name to aid a 
college in Tennessee, on the ground that the Union could 
not last and there was, hence, no reason for New Englanders 
to promote a literary institution in the South and thereby give 
" strength to those who were to be their enemies." 4 

The words of a debater during the Missouri struggle seem 
to indicate other early symptoms of the same fundamental dif- 
ference. Said this member: 

It is now at least twenty years, that I have, with some pain and 
apprehension, remarked the increasing spirit of local and sec- 
tional envy and dislike between the North and the South. A 
continued series of sarcasms upon each other's circumstances, 
modes of living, and manners, so foolishly persevered in, has 
produced at length that keen controversy which now enlists us in 
masses against each other on the opposite sides of the line of lat- 
itude. 5 

8 Gay so asserted in the Missouri debates, Benton's " Abridgment," Vol. 
VI. pp. 473. 474- 

4 "Jefferson's Works" (Ford's edition), Vol. I, p. 300. 
6 Benton's " Abridgment," Vol. VI, p. 478. 



THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 321 

It seems, also, that Macon as early as 181 8 foresaw pretty 
clearly the coming struggle. " The South country will be 
ruined," he wrote a friend in that year; and then inveighed 
against the abolition societies, predicting that they would yet 
try the question of emancipation. "If Congress can make 
canals," he added, having in view no doubt the liberal inter- 
pretation advocated by Calhoun and some others, " they can 
with more propriety emancipate. Be not deceived. I speak 
soberly in the fear of God and love of the constitution." 6 

The country in general, however, and most even of its 
leading men, took little thought of this matter, and it re- 
mained for the struggle over Missouri, flashing suddenly into 
flame, to awaken public attention and strike terror to the 
hearts of the older patriots, who soon came to realize that 
a cause existed in our midst which bore every promise of 
having the capacity to rend us asunder. It was on the 15th 
day of February, 1819, that Tallmadge proposed the re- 
striction on the State of Missouri to prohibit slavery within 
her limits ; and from that time on until the final admission of 
the State, on August 10, 1821, — free of restriction, but with 
the well-known Compromise between the two sections of the 
country that slavery should be excluded from all the later ter- 
ritories north of latitude 36 30', — the desperate struggle con- 
tinued. 

Into its details we do not need to enter here, but the student 
should bear in mind that the whole contest evinced most clearly 
a design to arrest the spread of the Southern social system 
and to limit it to those States in which it had already been 
established. Indeed, it proposed to do more, for slavery 
was to be extirpated in Missouri, where it had already existed 
for years, and efforts were also made to forbid it in Arkansas, 
which was then erected into a territory and where it had al- 
ready been actually introduced. 7 These efforts failed, but they 
spoke in stentorian tones of the underlying object of the North. 

It should also be mentioned here, in explanation of Southern 
outbursts against Rufus King, that when the flames of the 

«Wm. E. Dodd's "Nathaniel Macon," pp. 310, 313. 
7 Benton's " Abridgment," Vol. VI, p. 367, foot-note. 



LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

coir. e ?: -eemed to die down after the session of Congress end- 
ing with March 3. 1819. King was cry active in setting on 
foot the concert of measures that resulted, as John Ouir.: 
Adams wrote 8 on Febm^r 20 182c in the struggle wh 
now shakes the Union to its centre." The South was not 
likely to forget the man whose opinions were among the most 
radical ones on the general subject,* and to whom was due 
the renewed effort to exclude her from a region where her 
:em seemed to belong, and into which it had already at 

It was. then, during the Missouri contest that the two great 
sections of our country for the first time and most distin: 
?::: [ in ::.?. r. -:..t :.-::. iz'- : .::r. t :-.:'.: ::'mt The S : .::>. 
felt herself attacked and heard bitter. — if for the time some- 
what veiled. — invectives again-: -:em which was a part 
of her very bone and fibre. These invectives came, too. with 
no good grace from a section that had but recently rid itself 
of the same system. It was hardly for the North so soon 
to wrap itself in a cloak of virtue and denounce the South 
on that subject. 

The attacks were however, well-nigh universal and by no 
means to be found only in the fumes of volatile Congressional 
eloquence. The pr :amphlets, the 4th of July and other 
public meetings throughout the country, the pulpit, — so often 
merely echoing the popular passion of the hour. — all sh 
ered anathemas on the South, even going so far as to demand 
openly the abolition of slavery in general. Beginning in the 
great cities and thickly-settled regions of the North. u th 
resolutions . . . were reechoed by county meetings, by grand 
juries, and by town meetings all over the States from Man- 
land eastward, and in time by legislatures." w 

wonder the Southerners were alarmed, for the agitation 
assumed a brand of inferiority in them, and threatened not 
only to stop absolutely their expansion but also in the end to 
tear their civilization up by the roots. Slav - is too closely 

_ Y ;-.- 
:- .:- -- ■ 
"McMast- -ited State? Vol TV. F7 : " 57* 



THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 323 

interwoven with every fibre of the Southerners' lives for 
them to face its extirpation, — especially at the hands of others. 
X umbers of their leaders had been active, it is true, in the 
American Colonization Society and had expressed opinions 
against slavery; but the then proposals had in view at most 
only a very gradual process and were largely under the control 
of those who lived in the South. The effort of 1819 was to 
exert Congressional authority and suddenly to uproot and 
abolish slavery in Missouri, while the denunciations of the sys- 
tem from all sources in the X'orth foretold in warning notes 
what was in the womb of Time, and unavoidably drove into 
an attitude of self-defense the men of the South, who had 
grown up with slavery from earliest infancy and saw its web 
and woof all around them on every side. 

How could it have been extirpated except by revolution, 
or by the slowest and most groping steps? And even if it 
might have been gradually worn out, the question of what 
to do with the hordes of fundamentally incapable negroes 
stared the men of the South of that day in the face so squarely 
that they realized, if darkly and dimly, the terrible problem the 
blacks have been since the Civil War and to-day still are. 
Perhaps it would be better to say they felt but did not dare 
face it. much as we to-day feel that there is something wrong 
in our money system or our labor system, with their crush- 
ing effects on individuals ; but most of us do not dare to un- 
dertake their amendment. The problem was a too terrible 
one for the men of any particular time to attempt to solve, 
and Macon did but express the opinion of his whole section 
when in 1806 he said 11 in the Senate: "It is in vain to 
talk of turning these creatures loose to cut our throats." 

At the very same time, too, when the Missouri contest was 
thus driving the Southerners to unite in defence of their 

11 Annals of Congress. Ninth Congre-s, Second Session, p. 225. This 
was said during the discussions of the bill to prohibit the importation of 
slaves after 1807. when an amendment was offered to make free any blacks 
imoorted in violation of the law. Macon said that there was but one 
opinion on the general subject, and that was to prohibit importations 
after that date: but that a law must be made that would be effective every- 
where, and this amendment would not attain that end (ibid., pp. 173, 173"). 
Later in the same discussion he made the remark quoted in the text. 



324 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

equality in the Union, another question was raised, upon which 
there was much the same alignment of the sections. In the 
spring of 1820, Baldwin of Pennsylvania brought in a tariff 
bill making material increases in the rates, and this passed the 
House but failed in the Senate, by votes very much the same as 
those on the Missouri question. It has been shown already 
that, contrary to what is often stated, the South had cast a 
majority of her votes against the Tariff of 18 16, and on the 
bill of 1820 her vote in the House was 40 Nays to 3 Yeas 
(12 not voting). At this time, she was already beginning to 
awake to her isolation in the Union, and the Southern Pa- 
triot, 12 of Charleston, wrote of the fact that new party dis- 
tinctions were coming on " of a far more dangerous character 
and complexion. We allude to those of a geographical na- 
ture, which a few restless spirits are laboring to build up." 

This idea of a coming geographical party — meaning evi- 
dently the North uniting against the South — was probably 
widely held throughout the South at that time, and John Tay- 
lor of Caroline wrote of it, 13 though he was of opinion that 
it could only be a transitory line of division and that otherwise 
it would certainly lead to disunion. Calhoun, too, in 1827, 
at a date close to his completed change, wrote of the same 
general idea and expressed the opinion that the constitution 
did not sufficiently guard the different geographical inter- 
ests. 14 

12 Issue of April 22, 1820; see also issues of April 5, 18, tq, and May 13. 
That of May 13 contains a letter from Eldred Simkins, Calhoun's intimate 
friend and successor in the House of Representatives, expressing the opin- 
ion that the Baldwin hill would be "deeply injurious to our great agri- 
cultural and commercial interests." 

13 Letter of December 30, 1820, printed by Prof. Wm. E. Dodd in 
"The Nation" of March 30, 191 1. The name of Taylor's correspondent 
does not appear. 

14 " Correspondence," pp. 250, 251. This was evidently the germ of his 
view, in very late life: that both sections should elect a President. See 
" Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States " 
in " Works." Vol. I, pp. 392-96, and see also post. Vol. II, pp. 455, 456. 
The general sense of isolation was well-nigh universal throughout the 
South in a few years. Chancellor Harper said in his Address of Sep- 
tember 20, 1830, at Columbia : " Rut it is needless and impracticable to 
disguise the fact that the South is in a permanent minority, and that there 
is a sectional majority against it." Pamphlet in the Library of the Uni- 
versity of South Carolina, and also in the Library Co. of Philadelphia. 






THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 325 

In 1820 resolutions were offered in the House of Represen- 
tatives of South Carolina, denouncing the tariff bills which 
had been proposed in Congress, but they failed of passage. A 
committee, to which they were referred, while earnestly 
deprecating " the restrictive system attempted to be forced on 
the nation, as premature and pernicious," yet recommended 
that they should be rejected, and spoke of " the practice, un- 
fortunately become too common, of arraying upon the question 
of national policy, the states as distinct and independent sover- 
eignties in opposition to, or (what is much the same thing) 
with a view to exercise a control over the general govern- 
ment." 15 Such was the moderation in South Carolina in the 
early days of the protective movement. 

In the same year 1820, too, a meeting was held in Charles- 
ton and a memorial drafted against the proposed Baldwin 
law. 10 This was equally a most temperate document, but pre- 
sented the Southern case with great force and much as the 
protests of later years did, except for the heat and the asser- 
tion of unconstitutionality. It said : 

The Southern States are not and cannot for a long series of 
years become a manufacturing nation. We have not a popula- 
tion equal to the cultivation of our soil, and the insalubrity of 
our climate forbids the hope that this deficiency will soon if ever 
be supplied by a population of white laborers. We will, and 
must continue to raise, provisions, articles of the first necessity 
for man in every climate, and raw materials for the use and con- 
sumption of manufacturing nations. It is, therefore, peculiarly 
our interest, that our interchange with the world should be free ; 
that the markets for the consumption of our produce should be 
extended as widely as the habitations of man. It is equally our 
interest that the articles we are compelled to consume should 
be procured on the most advantageous terms. 

The address then expressed the ever present Southern fear 17 

15 Ames's " State Documents," &c, pp. 134. US- 

16 The "Southern Patriot" for September 15 and 16, 1820; Jervey's 
"Hayne," pp. 106-112. 

17 This fear was not without justification, and a few years after the 
peace of 1815 the British did try unsuccessfully to supply their wants from 
the East Indies. McMaster's " United States," Vol. V, p. 169. In our 
day, too, both the British and Germans are at least making similar efforts. 



326 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

that Great Britain would put a tax on articles of Southern growth 
or procure them from other countries, and concluded, " To man- 
ufacturers we repeat we have no hostility. We wish them to 
share the general prosperity of our country, and repose and 
flourish under its liberal protection. But we perceive in them 
no features which entitle them to partial favors or particular 
privileges. Against a system, therefore, calculated to elevate one 
interest in a society to an undue influence and importance, against 
a system intended to enrich one description of citizens at the ex- 
pense of every other class, against a system calculated to ag- 
grandize and enrich some states to the injury of others, against 
a system in every aspect partial, unequal and unjust we most 
solemnly protest." 

Nor were even the Missouri struggle and the proposed Bald- 
win tariff the only portents of about that same time to the 
South; for but two years later, in the spring of 1822, a servile 
insurrection broke out in and near Charleston, instigated in 
great part by a free mulatto, Denmark Vesey ; and during the 
trials growing out of it there was direct evidence that the 
language in regard to slavery uttered by Rufus King in the 
Senate during the Missouri debate had been used to incite 
the uprising. 18 Modern men, by recalling the state of panicky 
excitement we have witnessed during labor strikes, can per- 
haps realize to some extent the feeling with which the South 
must have regarded this infinitely more appalling forerunner 
of the oft-threatened general strike. 

All these causes tended to drive the men of the South to 
united action in defense of their interests, and particularly 
against any suggestion of interference with slavery; but they 
were by no means allowed to live in peace on this question. 
From the time of the Missouri contest, — but little before it, — 
proposal after proposal was made in a formal way looking to 

"Jervey's " Hayne," p. 185. "Brutus" also wrote in the "Crisis," (No. 
XXVI, p. 133) : " By the Missouri question, our slaves thought that there 
was a' charter of liberties granted them by Congress, and the events 
of the summer of 1822, as will appear by the records of the trials, and 
the dying confessions of the misguided wretches, will long be remembered, 
as amongst the choicest fruits of the agitation of that question in Con- 
gress." 



THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 327 

its abolition or curtailment by the federal power, and these 
were offered by men who had no personal interest in the 
subject and had probably given but little thought to it. Doubt- 
less, the authors were often merely vieing with one another 
in the effort to please constituents. 

Anti-slavery proposals of various kinds were made during 
the progress of the Missouri contest. Thus, a Southerner 
wanted to establish a registry of slaves by the federal govern- 
ment with the object of preventing their introduction into the 
United States or any territory. 19 Foot, of Connecticut moved 
resolutions prohibiting slavery in any of the territories and 
requiring each intended new State to insert in its constitution 
an express prohibition thereof, 20 and resolutions to this same 
effect were presented early in 1820 from the Legislatures of 
New York, 21 Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ohio, and Indiana, all re- 
solved against admitting Missouri without a prohibition of 
slavery, 22 Pennsylvania putting in her resolution the sting of 
denouncing the Missouri bill as "a measure, in brief, which 
proposed to spread the crimes and cruelties of slavery, from 
the banks of the Mississippi to the shores of the Pacific." 
Some of King's ideas as to slavery's having no legal exist- 
ence at all in any part of the country have been already men- 
tioned, and Calhoun himself heard these same views broadly 
maintained by John Quincy Adams. 23 

Ohio resolved at about this same general period that slavery 
was " a national calamity as well as a great moral and political 
evil " and wanted her delegation to use their utmost exertions 
to exclude it from all the territories or any new State. 24 The 
American Colonization Society, despite its support for some 
years by Southern men, was suspected of hidden abolition 

^ 10 Charleston " Courier " of January 28, 1820. Annals of Congress, 
Sixteenth Congress, First Session, Vol. I, (1819-20), p. 925. 

20 Charleston " Courier " of February 17, 1820. Benton's " Abridgment," 
Vol. VI, p. 515. 

21 Benton's " Abridgment," Vol. VI, p. 424. 

22 Ibid., p. 416. Ames's " State Documents," etc., pp. 196, 197. 

23 Ante, pp. 257-259. 

24 Benton's " Abridgment" Vol. VI, p. 434. 



328 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

tendencies as early as 1821, and by 1824 its proceedings surely 
bore out this suspicion. 25 The Society soon found it advisable 
to enter a denial and assert its entire impartiality. 26 New Jer- 
sey in 1824 adopted resolutions in favor of gradual emancipa- 
tion and colonization 27 and in this same year Ohio spoke 
once more on the subject. 

These Ohio resolutions of 1824 were very elaborate and 
looked to gradual abolition throughout the Union by consent 
and co-operation of the States and of Congress. The idea 
was that this could be done, without infringing any one's 
rights, through a system of colonization " by the passage of 
a law by the general government (with the consent of the 
slave-holding States) which should provide, that all children 
of persons now held in slavery, born after the passage of 
such law, should be free at the age of 21 years (being sup- 
ported during their minority by the persons claiming the 
service of their parents) providing that they consent to be 
transported to the intended place of colonization." 2S Was 
this mere agitation, or a half-remembered dream of some 
raw reformer who did not even stop to think of the absolute 
impossibility of securing the necessary agreements to his plan? 

Ohio was very active upon the subject and spoke once 
more in 1828. This time the proposal was that her dele- 
gation should " use their efforts to induce the government of 
the United States to aid the American Colonization Society in 
effecting the object of their institution, which is so eminently 
calculated to advance the honor and interest of our common 
country." 29 In this same year 1828, too, an effort was made 
to enlist Pennsylvania in the cause, and her House passed 

25 Brutus's " Crisis," No. XXV, pp. 121, 122 of pamphlet. Report of 
Seventh annual meeting of the American Colonization Society, pp. 7, 13, 
and passim. 

26 Niles's " Register," Vol. XXIX, pp. 329, 330, giving account of the 
Ninth Annual Meeting of the Society, January 29, 1826. 

27 Alice Davis Adams's " Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America " 
(Radcliffe College Monographs, No. XIV) p. 91. Eighth Annual Report 
of American Colonization Society. 

28 Alice Davis Adams's " Neglected Period," p. 91. " A Political History 
of Slavery," by Wm. H. Smith, Vol. I, pp. 23, 24. Charleston " Courier " 
of December 9, 1824. 

29 Resolution of the General Assembly of Ohio, contained in Acts of 
Local Nature, First Session, Twenty-Sixth General Assembly, p. 177. 



THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 329 

resolutions against the existence of slavery in the District 
of Columbia. Early the next year both branches of her Legis- 
lature agreed upon similar resolutions. 30 

Bitter contests arose, also, over the South Carolina " Negro 
Seamen Act " of 1822, a law which grew out of the regula- 
tion of free negroes. These latter were a very serious trou- 
ble, where slavery existed, and to a considerable extent through- 
out the whole country, 31 down to as late as 1865. In the 
South, they constituted a chief means by which abolition ideas 
were disseminated among the slaves, and it has been already 
seen that the South Carolina Insurrection of 1822 owed its 
origin in part at least to instigation of the slaves through them. 

Two years before that insurrection, a law 32 had been passed 
upon the subject, prohibiting the incoming of free negroes 
and providing that, in case any one violating the law should 
fail to leave the State upon warning, he might, after certain 
steps, be sold into slavery for five years. And in 1822, — the 
same year as the uprising, — another broader law 33 was en- 
acted which has generally been known, from the provisions 
of its third section as the " Negro Seamen Act." This section 
provided that free negroes on any vessel coming into South 
Carolina ports might be detained in gaol at the captain's ex- 
pense while the vessel remained, and if these expenses should 
not be paid the negro might be sold as an absolute slave. A 
harsh provision certainly, according to modern lights, and it 
led to representations in Washington from Great Britain and 
was in the opinion of our Attorney General unconstitutional. 
This was, moreover, later decided by Judge Johnson in the 
United States Circuit Court 34 of South Carolina. 

30 Vol. V, Register of Debates, p. 180; Alice Davis Adams's "Neglected 
Period," etc., p. 91 ; Laws of Pennsylvania, 1828-29, p. 371. 

31 Several Northern States passed laws to exclude negroes or to super- 
vise their incoming, down to nearly as late as the Civil War. Ohio, In- 
diana, Illinois, and even Oregon, did so, — the last-named adopting a con- 
stitutional amendment in 1857 to exclude them. Illinois, by a law of 1853, 
excluded them and directed that, in case of violation of this provision, 
the offending negro should be fined and sold for a time to pay the debt. 
" Virginia's Attitude toward Slavery and Secession," by Beverley B. Mum- 
ford, Chap. XI, pp. 66-74, 160-174. 

32 South Carolina Laws, 1820, pp. 22-24. 

83 South Carolina Laws, 1822, pp. 11-14. 

84 Elkinson vs. Deliesseline, Brunner's Collected Cases (N. S.) Vol. I, 



330 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Secretary of State Adams corresponded with the Governor 
of South Carolina upon the subject, representing the impro- 
priety of the law and the foreign troubles it created, 35 and here 
was another conflict between the federal government and 
Calhoun's native State, which he must have watched closely 
while Secretary of War, and in which he can hardly have long, 
ijt at all, sided against those in his home region. 

During the contest, Georgia proposed about 1824 an amend- 
ment to the federal constitution that no part of it should be 
interpreted to authorize the ingress of persons of color into 
any State contrary to its laws, 36 and resolutions were offered 
in the South Carolina Legislature by Dr. John Ramsay 37 in 
1824, reciting that the Legislature " protests against any claim 
of right, of the United States, to interfere in any manner what- 
ever with the domestic regulations and preservatory measures 
in respect to that part of her property which forms the colored 
population of the State, and which property they will not per- 
mit to be meddled with, or tampered with, or in any manner 
ordered, regulated or controlled by any other power, foreign 
or domestic, than this legislature." 38 

These resolutions were passed in the Senate, while in the 
House, far more moderate ones were offered by Prioleau and 
passed by a large majority, but even these, after reciting 
that the letters of the President on the subject had been " re- 
spectfully " considered, went on that the measures in question 
were " simply part of a general system of domestic policy, 
defensible as such, and absolutely necessary to ensure the 
safety of the citizens; that in the opinion therefore of this 
Legislature, the principle contained in said section M neither 

(U. S.) ; p. 431. Technically, Johnson's opinion was probably not more 
than a dictum, but it was so positive as to carry great weight. 

35 McMaster's " United States," Vol. V, p. 203. 

3 * Message of the Governor of South Carolina of December, 1824, as 
contained in the Charleston " Courier " of December 7, 1824. 

87 Mr. Hunt writes (" Calhoun," p. 80) that these resolutions were not 
drawn by Ramsay, but by Robert J. Turnbull, the author of " The 
Crisis." 

38 The Charleston "Courier" of December 9, 1824. 

39 The third section providing for the detention in jail of free negro 
sailors on vessels coming into port, and their possible sale into slavery. 









THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 331 

can nor ought to be repealed." 40 Neither set of resolutions 
received the vote of the two Houses, but they both show the 
almost universal belief in the State as to the necessity of the 
laws in question and a conviction that they must be adhered 
to, notwithstanding the representations of the federal power 
and of foreign nations. 

Calhoun, who was in 1824 himself concerned in the contest 
of Georgia with the federal government in regard to the 
Cherokee lands, answered a delegation of objecting Indians by 
telling them they must give up the lands in question, and upon 
their refusal so to do wrote the Governor of Georgia inform- 
ing him of their decision, and this answer brought forth a 
hot answer from the fiery Troup, denouncing the federal 
government for its sloth and failure to keep its agreement to 
extinguish the Indian title. Calhoun saw, too, of course, a 
very few years later and while he was an opponent of Adams's 
administration, that Troup went on and made a survey of the 
lands in question, in the teeth of Adams's threat to stop 
him by force. 41 

The extent of the Southern excitement on the general sub- 
ject crops out in other ways. In 1823, John Quincy Adams 
records 42 that at a dinner, when the decision of Judge Johnson 
that the Negro Seamen Act was unconstitutional became a 
subject of conversation, Hayne — then and always a close 
friend of Calhoun — " discovered so much excitement and 
temper that it became painful and necessary to change the 
topic," and the same authority writes 43 of Rufus King's tell- 
ing him in May, 1824, that it would be absolutely necessary 
to annex a limitation to the Slave Trade Convention then 
pending in the Senate, so great was the panic of the South- 

40 The Charleston "Courier" of December 22, 1824. It is often not 
mentioned that the Act was, after all, very materially altered by a new 
law upon the subject passed in 1823, the 8th section of which provided 
that the Act should not apply to free negroes on any war vessel of 
the United States or of a European power in amity with us, unless found 
on shore after being warned to stay on board. It also repealed the pro- 
vision for sale of the negro, and directed corporal punishment. South 
Carolina Laws, 1823, pp. 50-63. Jervey's " Hayne," p. 179. This act of 
1823 was again amended and extended in 1833 (Laws, &c, pp. 34-39). 
but the provisions of the 8th section were not changed. 

"McMaster's "United States," Vol. V, pp. 177-201. 

«2 " Memoirs," Vol. VI, p. 176. 

43 Ibid., p. 339. 



332 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

ern members over late speeches in the British Parliament in 
regard to abolition. Again, Adams tells us 44 in March, 1825, 
that the Southern men were uniting together — a very indic- 
ative symptom of the day, sure to have had its influence on 
Calhoun, — while in the same year a prominent Charleston 
paper 43 spoke of King's proposal in the Senate to raise a fund 
from the sales of public lands to aid in emancipation and 
colonization as " an inflammatory proposition ... an un- 
hallowed and desperate attempt to excite the public mind 
upon a certain subject." 

During the debates in 1826 on the proposed Panama Mis- 
sion, when it came out that propositions possibly looking to 
abolition were likely to be among the subjects of discussion, 
Hayne declared solemnly that the Southern States " never 
will permit and never can permit any interference whatever 
in their domestic concerns, and that the very day on which 
the unhallowed attempt shall be made by the authority of the 
Federal Government, we will consider ourselves as driven from 
the Union." 46 And in 1828 Georgia resolved that " this 
State never can and never will so far compromise her interests 
on a certain subject of such deep and vital concern to her 
self-preservation as to suffer this question to be brought into 
consideration." 47 

Despite all this heat and wrangling in regard to the slavery 
question, the first breach between the sections did not arise 
on that issue. Slavery was beyond question the great underly- 
ing first cause, as we may say, — and it will be found that 
Calhoun realized this in a few years, — but the actual breach 
sprang up upon another difference. The advocates of pro- 
tection by no means remained contented with their repulse in 
1820. On the contrary, their appetite grew, and the next 

44 Ibid., p. 525. 

45 The "Gazette" of June 1, 1825, cited in Jervey's "Hayne." p. 186; 
King's proposal was offered on February 18, 1825, and is to be found 
in Congressional Debates, Vol. I (1824-25), p. 623. 

*« McMaster's " United States," Vol. V, p. 446- Congressional Debates, 
Vol. II, Part I (1825-26), p. 165. Hayne was speaking in reference to 
some resolutions that he had introduced in answer to those of King, just 
referred to. King's resolutions were not allowed to be debated, and 
Hayne took this way of meeting them. 

47 Georgia Laws, 1828, pp. I74~79- 






THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 333 

decade witnessed a vast increase of the tariff hunger and the 
passage of laws containing rates which would not have been 
dreamed to be possible earlier. 

At the very next session after the defeat of 1820, Baldwin 
presented resolutions favoring an increase, and in 1823 his 
successor as chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, 
Tod of Pennsylvania, brought in a bill to raise the rates, but 
failed to get it through the House. 48 Finally, in 1824 the 
friends of the " American System " succeeded in enacting a 
new law upon the subject, which made a general increase. 
These efforts by no means went without criticism in the 
South, and upon the bill of 1824, as upon all the other tariff 
laws of the period, that section voted against it with practical 
unanimity. Of the fifty-six members in the House from the 
seven contiguous States of Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, fifty- 
four voted Nay, one did not vote, and there was but one 
single Aye, coming from Virginia. 

Unanimity of this sort does not arise either from chance or 
from mere perversity. There must have been a reason for it, 
and the truth is that the reason was as plain as the noon-day 
sun and quite enough to bring about the result. The South 
produced cotton and some other crops, of which a large por- 
tion was sent abroad from their own harbors. In carrying 
on this export, the vessels that came to Southern ports for 
cotton for the English mills arrived laden with foreign-made 
wares. All sorts of articles were brought from abroad and 
sold at prices with which domestic manufacturers could not 
pretend to compete. The interchange thus arising had, more- 
over, gone on for a number of years, so that every vessel 
coming from Liverpool to Charleston or Savannah for cotton 
is said to have been laden with articles the planters con- 
sumed, and an " immense trade had grown up between Great 
Britain and the South." 49 

This system had in time closely interwoven itself with the 
lives of the Southern planters, and their social and economical 

48 Stan wood's "Tariff Controversies." Vol. I, pp. 107, 198. 
< r ' McMaster's " United States." Vol. V, p. 228. 



334 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

habits were largely based on it. Their houses and farms were 
full of its products. Thousands of Southern people must 
have gained their daily bread by looking after its business de- 
tails, and they owned, as well as built, not a few of the vessels 
engaged in the commerce. The interchange had indeed be- 
come an integral part of their civilization. In every step of 
the process, they were thrown into close connection of many 
kinds with Great Britain, and this course of business, so mark- 
edly different from what prevailed in the country in general, 
had developed throughout the whole South a strong feeling of 
solidarity and of unity among the people of that section. 

Perhaps it will be said that these very close relations with 
a foreign country tended to make the Southerners forget to 
some extent that they were Americans; but, if some see in 
this a theoretical substratum of truth, it had, at least, not 
found actual expression ; and the South had at no time been 
slow to assume a generous part in all our struggles and bat- 
tles. 

Remembering, then, the system of commercial relations 
that had grown up and sent its roots deep down all through the 
Southern States, what did the Tariff Act of 1824 and the 
still more radical later ones propose to do? Their very design 
was to break up and dislocate all these habits of years and 
to force the Southern planters to change enormously their long 
formed habits. They must cease buying the articles they 
wanted and were used to, that fitted in their houses and on 
their farms, that they had learned to handle in youth; and 
they were now to be compelled for the benefit of the other sec- 
tion of the country to buy instead more or less different and 
for the time at least inferior articles of home make at higher 
prices. 

This was to be the case, too, not merely as to some classes 
of citizens but as to all, — or the vast majority, — of those 
whose lot was cast in any one of the seven States named. 
The indictment was drawn against the whole people. They 
must all learn new methods at the behests of the North, and 
many thousands engaged in the commerce I have attempted to 
depict were to find their occupations swept away from them 



THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 335 

so that they must start anew in life. Nor could there be any 
valid pretence of a design to raise the price of what the plant- 
ers sold, and thus make up to them the losses they were forced 
to suffer from having to buy in a restricted market. 

Can we wonder, when we are told 50 that in 1825 the South- 
erners were beginning to unite for self-protection? Or that 
they objected and scolded, remonstrated, passed many reso- 
lutions, denounced, threatened, all in their fiery Southern way? 
Or even that they began in a few years to calculate the value 
of the Union, while the hotter heads among them advocated 
secession or some sort of violence, and that finally after ten 
long years of agitation and utterly unavailing effort, one 
among them endowed with a mind of most unusual power, 
seeking a remedy for his people, thought he found it in State 
Interposition or Nullification — the means which it is to my 
mind demonstrable (unless words be really designed for the 
purpose of hiding our meaning) that Jefferson and Madison 
and others of the Fathers had pointed out as the strictly legal 
mode of stopping extra-constitutional actions on the part of the 
federal government? 

There is one other view of the matter which it is vital to 
bear in mind. The fundamental point in contest between the 
North and South, then, as well as before and after, was 
at bottom the question of control. Each section wanted to 
have the upper hand in the Union and not to run any risk of 
being exploited or injured by the other. In the earlier days, 
when the South had the greater power in federal affairs and 
there was a succession of Southern Presidents, New England 
was for years in a chronic state of disunion sentiment, and 
the hysterical, strident, scolding of her men of the cold North- 
ern type will easily rival that of the hot-blooded Southrons, 
with which we have to deal, when they in turn found them- 
selves drifting into a minority. 

This fundamental cause seems as plain as any single ele- 
ment can well be in complicated public affairs, 51 but not much 

50 J. Q. Arlams's "Memoirs," Vol. VT, p. 525- 

51 J. A. Woodbuni, in his article on "The Historical Significance of 
the Missouri Compromise" (Report of American Historical Association, 
7893. PP- 251-207), writes, at p. 294, that at the time of the struggle, the 



336 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

is in general said of it. Scattering recognitions are to be 
found at the time in question, but historians generally leave 
it out of view and write glowingly of the moral causes which 
led for instance to the effort to exclude slavery from Mis- 
souri. It is by no means my purpose to question the existence 
of these motives, and they undoubtedly were the controlling 
ones as to the actions of many private citizens. It may 
perhaps even be that a majority of Northerners, not actively 
engaged in the political struggle, felt somewhat as it will be 
shown 52 that in 1820 and 1821 Calhoun understood them to 
feel, that the struggle involved only the question of the ex- 
tension of slavery. " Under this view," he went on, " it is 
not to be wondered at, that much excitement was caused. 
They viewed it in some degree in the same light, that they 
would the opening of the ports to the introduction of Afri- 
cans." 

But it is a far call from this to the belief that the politicians, 
big or little, who made the issue and persistently fanned its 
flames, were blind to its strategic value in the game they were 
playing, or that hosts of private citizens failed to appre- 
ciate that here was the way " to be rid of Southern Presi- 
dents." 53 To suppose that Rufus King, for example, when 
he intentionally laid the mines between the end of one and be- 
ginning of another Congress to start the issue up anew, was 
not far more guided by the desire to secure the mastery for 
his section and even party, is to suppose that he and those with 
him had lost the Anglo-Saxon instinct for self-government. 

It was again in connection with the Missouri contest that 
this question of control first became very prominent. No less 
than eight 54 members referred to it during the debates, one 
saying: 

Southerners " first came to believe that the issue of this struggle for 
more slave states involved their political destiny and identity. This is 
the true significance of the Missouri question." 
**Infw, p. 342. 

53 McMaster's " United States," Vol. TV, pp. 577, et seq. 

54 "James Barbour of Virginia," Benton's "Abridgment," Vol. IV. 
p. 429; "Roberts of Pennsylvania." ibid., p. 432; " Pinkney of Maryland,' 
ibid., p. 430: "Clay of Kentucky." ibid., pp. 471, 473. 474: "Hardin of 
Kentucky," ibid., pp. 499, 500; "Johnson of Virginia," ibid., p. 544; "Dan- 



THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 337 

I greatly fear . . . that gentlemen are fighting under false 
colors — that they have not yet hoisted their true flag. . . . 
Would it not be more magnanimous to haul down the colors on 
which are engraven humanity, morality and religion and in lieu 
thereof unfurl the genuine banner, on which is written a con- 
test for political consequence and mastery? 

Lowndes, too, realized at an early day that the question was 
fundamentally one of power between the sections, and pre- 
dicted 55 that it would affect opinion in the North as to the 
then pending treaty for the acquisition of Florida. He doubt- 
less foresaw that the North would no longer want to take into 
the Union a large territory, which must contribute to the in- 
crease of her rival's power. How right he was, the near 
future showed, 56 and even the draughtsman of the treaty on the 
American side, who had long been intensely interested, became 
soon very cold in regard to the whole matter. 

The South also lost interest in Florida at about the same 
time, 57 and evidently for similar reasons. Thus, Jefferson 
wrote Monroe in May, 1820, 58 suggesting that the Florida 
treaty be set aside and that " we should look to the occupa- 
tion of Texas." He can only have meant that if the North 
intended to try and curb the Southern growth in Missouri, the 
South should in turn make every effort to secure for the 
Union some other larger stretch of territory still more sure to 
be under the control of Southern civilization. 

At about the time with which we have to do, a marked change 
in the relative power of the two sections was taking place. 
Hence, doubtless, this proposal of Jefferson's and hence all 
the other efforts of Southerners, — then and later, — to have 
the Union acquire more land that should be under their control. 
This was their answer to the design to make of them a dwin- 

ington of Pennsylvania," ibid., p. 547; "Tucker of Virginia," ibid., p. 559- 
The quotation is from Hardin's speech. 

55 J. Q. Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. IV, pp. 480, 496, 502, 503. 506. 
Adams also saw that the question was one of power, ibid., Vol. V, pp. 15, 
19, 26. 

50 Ibid., pp. 19, 26, 53. 

6T Ibid., pp. 100, 101, 180. 

68 Mentioned in ibid., p. 128. The diarist records in February 1820, 
that two Southern Senators wanted to "take" Texas; "Memoirs," Vol. 
IV, p. 518. 



3& LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

dling minority, which was shown at the time of the Missouri 
outburst. In earlier clays, they had had far more power and 
their outlook in general had been far brighter. 

After the peace with Great Britain in 1815, and the end 
of the long European wars, a great demand had sprung up 
abroad for the products of the Southern soil. Fortune seemed 
to smile on that section and there was soon an extensive mi- 
gration of her people to the region west of them, and a vast 
area of virgin land of immense fertility was rapidly opened. 
What influence this had on prices and on the later depression 
in the South will be touched upon hereafter, but the peace 
held forth the promise of a great future to them, and their 
people were buoyant with hope. On the other hand, the same 
causes largely took from New England the carrying trade of 
the world, and soon the market abroad for her grain was also 
greatly curtailed. The South, — both before and at this time 
and for several years afterward, — largely controlled the Un- 
ion, but somewhere about 1820 this control began to leave her 
and to gravitate into the hands of the North. 

The falling behind of the South is usually put down to 
slavery; and doubtless that institution was a contributing 
cause, but there was another very potent one, and that was the 
new States and the rapidly growing territories northwest 
of the Ohio River. Words have had a vast influence in the 
formation of historical, as of all human, beliefs, and the two 
words " the West " seem often to have misled us. In and near 
the days of our constitutional origin, those words were used al- 
most exclusively to denote the new States of Kentucky and 
Tennessee, coming ere long to include also the more southern 
portion of the Louisiana purchase. All this region must evi- 
dently be a part of the South, and few, if any, were far seeing 
enough to anticipate so early the rush of settlement to the 
more northern portions of our vacant territory. Hence, the 
bitter Northern opposition to "the West," and her unquestion- 
able effort in early days to curb its growth. 

How different was all this in a few years, — say, by 1820, — 
when the country had grown used to Kentucky and Tennessee, 
had accepted as a necessity Louisiana, Mississippi and Ala- 




THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 339 

bama, and " the West " had come to refer far more to the 
highly prosperous States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and the 
other rapidly advancing regions of the Northwest — all certain 
in the main to add their voices and power to the North. 
New England was by this date far less inclined to burst forth 
into strident opposition to " the West," and in the Hayne- 
Webster debate a decade later both sections strove hard to 
win the support of the new region. The change in the mean- 
ing of the term was hardly recognized even then; but the 
South soon came to know that the West of about 1820-30 
would never be a part of her. 

In this increase of power of the North through the growth 
of the new West is undoubtedly to be found the cause that 
rendered it possible to wage the Missouri contest and force a 
compromise by virtue of which the South was thenceforth 
to be excluded from regions of latitude into which the ex- 
perience of Missouri had shown that she could carry her 
civilization; and to the power of the votes from the same 
new region were also largely due the various Tariff Acts, 
which the South looked upon as so injurious to her. 

The chief question here, of course, is how all this growth 
of public sentiment and affairs throughout the country, and 
more especially in his home section, was likely to affect Cal- 
houn. It has been gone into at some length, for the reason 
that it is absolutely vital to an understanding of him at this 
period of his life. It was the air he breathed, the soil in which 
his opinions grew, his daily and hourly environment. If we 
cannot to some extent realize his feeling and that of the 
South upon the subjects in dispute, it will be vain to attempt to 
understand either him or his section: but, if we can do so, 
their course will seem far more natural, and perhaps even 
unavoidable; always bearing in mind, however, that the lurid 
passion shown below Mason and Dixon's line was ever pitched 
in a higher key than belongs to the colder blood of the North. 

It is trite to say that we can form no just judgment of his- 
tory, or of the characters of the dead, unless we to some ex- 
tent bring back their surroundings and bathe ourselves anew, 
as it were, in the civilization of their day. The reader must 



34Q LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

then bear in mind what has already been emphasized more than 
once : that slavery, inherited from the past, was almost drunk 
in by the Southerner with his mother's milk, was all about 
him and tied up with his whole social and economical system 
by a thousand vital chords. And he must remember, too, 
the apparent impossibility of eradicating it and the natural 
dread of interference by a Central Government, the control 
of which was at that very time visibly passing out of Southern 
hands. 

Some of their leaders early saw the dangers ahead of them. 
Macon and Randolph, for instance, were from the beginning 
most decided in opposition to any discussion at all of slavery 
in Congress, and Randolph said 59 in 1826 that he and Macon, 
at the time of the Missouri struggle " were determined to have 
no compromise at all on this subject. They determined to cavil 
on the nineteenth part of a hair in a matter of sheer right — 
touching the dearest interests — the life-blood of the Southern 
States." And Benton, who, though a Southerner and a 
slaveholder, was a strong Union man during the times of the 
prologue to the Civil War, gave us an idea of the feeling at 
the time of the Missouri struggle, when he wrote late in life: 

It was a period of deep apprehension, filling with dismay the 
hearts of the steadiest patriots. . . . The movement to put the 
slavery restriction on Arkansas . . . seemed to menace the slave 
States with total exclusion from the province of Louisiana. 60 

Far different was the case with Calhoun, who seems to have 
been for some time unconscious of the real meaning of the 
Missouri contest. It is true that on August 12, 1820, when 
the third contest was looming up, he wrote : 61 

I can scarcely conceive of a cause of sufficient power to divide 

60 Congressional Debates, Vol. II, Part I, 1825-26. p. 354- In 1838, 
Calhoun expressed the opinion ("Works. , • Vol. Ill, p. 185), that if 
Randolph's course, which he had then thought " too unyielding, too uncom- 
promising, too impracticable," had been followed, " abolition might have 
been crushed forever in its birth." 

00 " Abridgment of Debates," etc., Vol. VI, p. 372. This refers to the 
period after the total failure of the Missouri Bill in March, 1819, at the 
expiration of the Fifteenth Congress. 

81 Letter to Gallaway in the Markoe Papers in Library of Congress, 
quoted in Hunt's " Calhoun," pp. 54, 55. 



THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 341 

this Union, unless a belief in the slaveholding states, that it is 
the intention of the other states gradually to undermine their 
property in their slaves and that a disunion is the only means 
to avert the evil. Should so dangerous a mode of believing once 
take root, no one can calculate the consequences ; and it will be 
found that a reagitation of the Missouri question will tend 
strongly to excite such a belief. 

But this letter appears to set forth his fears rather than his 
beliefs, -and he wrote quite differently in a slightly later and 
more careful expression of opinion. This was dated August 
26, 1820, and addressed to Judge Charles Tait, an old friend 
who had migrated to Alabama : C2 

I cannot but think that the impression, which exists on the 
minds of many of your virtuous and well informed citizens to 
the South, and among others are your own, that there has com- 
menced between the North and the South a premeditated strug- 
gle for superiority, is not correct. That there are some indi- 
viduals to the north, who for private objects, wish to create such 
a struggle, I do not doubt. It suits their ambition, and gives 
them hopes of success, as the majority of votes both in Con- 
gress and the electoral college is from the north ; or rather from 
the non-slave holding States. But their number is very small, 
and the few there are, are to be found almost wholly in New 
York, and the middle states. I by no means identify the advo- 
cates for restriction on ,3 Missouri with them. The advocates of 
restriction are actuated by a variety of motives. The great body 
of them are actuated by motives perfectly honest. Very few 
indeed look to emancipation. I state the case, as I am well as- 
sured that it exists. We to the South ought not to assent easily 
to the belief, that there is a conspiracy either against our prop- 
erty, or just weight in the Union. A belief of the former might, 
and probably would, lead to the most disastrous consequence. 
Nothing would lead more directly to disunion with all of its hor- 
rors. ... I have sometimes fears that the Missouri question 
will create suspicions to the south very unfavorable to a correct 
policy. 64 Should emancipation be attempted it must, and will be 

62 "Gulf States Historical Magazine," Vol. I, (September, 1902), pp. o&- 
100. 

63 In the letter as printed, " on " is " and," but this must be an error. 
*»* Meaning a liberal federal policy, such as Calhoua had theretofOrt 

advocated. 



342 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

resisted at all costs, but let us be certain first that it is the real 
object, not by a few, but by a large portion of the non-slave hold- 
ing states. Our political horizon presents no reasons to ex- 
pect a storm. All exhibit marks of quiet, which I hope, may long 
continue. . . . 

Again, a year later, after the admission of Missouri and the 
end of the contest and when Calhoun had evidently heard 
very different opinions from his own from Tait, he wrote 65 
him to much the same effect as in his letter of 1820. After 
expressing the conviction that his correspondent's views were 
erroneous, he writes that he did not " in the least doubt, but 
that the Missouri question was got up by a few designing 
politicians in order to extend their influence and power. . . ." 
And goes on : 

But we are not to infer, that, as the politicians were sus- 
tained by the North on the Missouri question, the people in 
that quarter entered into their views, or that even the leaders 
were actuated by a hatred to the South, rather than a restless 
ambition. The North considered it as a single question, involv- 
ing only the extension of slavery, and under this view, it is 
not to be wondered at, that much excitement was caused. They 
viewed it in some degree in the same light, that they would 
the office [opening?] of the ports to the introduction of Africans 
while the South, regarding its possible tendency, considered it 
in a character wholly different, and as involving in its conse- 
quence the question of abolition. . . . When I see one of your 
age, experience, wisdom and virtue thinking as ycu do on this 
point, I confess, I am alarmed if I say to myself, if the Missouri 
question has excited such feelings in the breast of so experienced 
and virtuous a citizen, what must be its effects in our section of 
the country on those less wise and virtuous. . . . 

It is thus evident that Calhoun did not then see the Missouri 
contest as the beginning of that struggle between the sections 
which history has since shown it to have been ; but his letter to 
Tait makes it clear at the same time that he was deeply im- 
pressed, and even alarmed, by the views held on the subject 

88 Ibid., pp. 102-104. 



THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 343 

by his correspondent and feared they were wide-spread through 
the South. 

Some other hints upon the general subject reach us, and 
he was evidently a close observer of the events of the day. 
Thus, he went to the Senate to hear William Pinkney's 
famous speech on the Missouri question. He had several 
talks with Adams in regard to the struggle, and in one of these 
the two friends discussed what would happen in case of 
the Union's breaking asunder. He heard, too (it has been 
shown), in March, 1820, Adams's assertion of the bald opin- 
ion that slavery had no legal existence in the country, and that 
the courts would so declare. Adams found him in May, 1820, 
when the Compromise as to Missouri had been passed, but 
the wounds it had left were still gaping, full of gloomy views 
as to public affairs, and in November of that same year, when 
the sectional struggle burst out again over the clause as to 
free negroes in the Missouri constitution, the diarist records 
that Calhoun was in great concern at its reappearance. 66 

In regard to the other chief bone of contention, — the tariff, 
— it has been seen 67 that Calhoun both spoke and voted in 
favor of the Act of 1816; but it must be remembered that 
that Act, though beyond question a measure for protection, 
was yet a most moderate law and was loudly called for by 
almost a duty to save from palpable ruin certain manufac- 
tures which had grown up during the war and had contributed 
in no small degree to render life tolerable in the United 
States during that time and the period of restriction. To 
leave them in the lurch, when peace was made, would have 
been a measure of doubtful morality, and could hardly be 
expected from a leading supporter of the war. Even this 
act, however, has been shown 68 to have met with much criti- 
cism in the South, and it has been said that Calhoun was se- 
verely censured for his part in the matter and charged with 
selling his State for the Presidency. 09 

88 Ante, pp. 256-261. 
67 Ante, pp. 183-187. 
88 Ante, pp. 190, 191. 

88 D. F. H. Houston's " Study of Nullification in South Carolina, p. 5. 
I have found no evidence going nearly so far as this. 



344 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

South Carolina was, probably as early as 1816, opposed 
to protection, and her course on the bills of a few years later 
shows beyond doubt that she, at least, soon realized that 
her interest was against such measures, and felt that she could 
not be a manufacturing State. The Charleston " Memorial" 
against the bill of 1820 put this feature of the matter in bold 
relief. All these views Calhoun must have heard expressed 
thousands of times by his friends and associates, and the almost 
unanimous votes of South Carolina against the later bills 
are the strongest evidence that the opinions he heard at 
home were nearly all the same. He was, of course, influ- 
enced by this, and his opinions on protection — which there is 
no reason to suppose had been strongly held, — soon show 
the effect of this, or of some other cause of like tendency. 

The very next opinion upon the subject that we have from 
him is that of opposition to the Baldwin bill of 1820, which he 
considered " as violent in degree and altogether unneces- 
sary." ™ In this, he was in exact agreement with South Caro- 
lina and the South generally, which had voted against that 
measure in the House by more than ten to one. It will be 
remembered that Baldwin's proposal was brought in during 
the Missouri struggle, and the rapidly growing alignment of 
the sections was well shown by the fact that the votes on 
it and the Missouri question were very similar. Again in 
1 82 1 Calhoun opposed some pro-tariff expressions contained 
in the draft of Monroe's second inaugural, and they were 
slightly modified to meet his objections. 71 

No actual expression from him as to the Act of 1824 
seems to have survived, but with the history of his earlier 
actions just narrated, it may safely be assumed that Jenkins, 
— his biographer of 1850, — was justified in saying that he was 
opposed to that act. Hayne and Calhoun's friends in Con- 
gress generally opposed the bill most strenuously, and, indeed, 
the whole South was by that time closely knit together on the 
subject. By this date they had come to denounce a pro- 

70 Letter of Virgil Maxcy to R. S. Garnett, dated November 16, 1823, 
and outlining Calhoun's views, "American Historical Review," Vol. XII 
(April, 1907), pp. 600, 601. 

71 Ante, p. 273. 



THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 345 

tective tariff as unconstitutional and were, moreover, begin- 
ning to advance State Rights doctrines in their defense. 72 
Calhoun can hardly have been untouched by all this, while an 
all-sufficient reason for his silence is to be found in the fact 
that he was a presidential candidate and hence desirous to 
avoid driving either party from him. 

Perhaps another reason was the factional struggle going on 
at that time in South Carolina between Judge Smith and Cal- 
houn's friends. This long-lasting feud assumed great activity 
in their legislature in December, 1824, and culminated a year 
later in the passage of the Smith resolutions declaring both 
internal improvements and a protective tariff unconstitutional. 
With this contest long ramifying throughout the State, it would 
perhaps have been awkward for Calhoun to announce widely 
his possibly rapidly changing opinion, and it is hardly likely 
that he already at that time regarded a protective tariff as 
unconstitutional. 

It is also to be noted that from as early as 18 17 down to 
1828, Calhoun's correspondence shows him complaining of 
the expenses he met, of enforced borrowing, and of the re- 
duction of his income. 73 How much of this was due to the 
financial troubles, which were at the time so usual, and how 
much perhaps to an expensive household and to probable out- 
lay for his political ambition. 74 can, of course, not be deter- 
mined, but he was at least likely to attribute it chiefly to any 
cause which was visibly affecting the financial prosperity of 
his section; and it is perfectly plain that the immediate effect 
of the tariff laws was to force the Southerner to pay higher 
for many of the articles he bought. 

These facts were doubtless in his mind, when toward the 
end of 1 82 1, he spoke to John Quincy Adams of the high 
prosperity of manufacturers, while farm products had greatly 

72 Hayne's speech summarized in Jervey's " Hayne," pp. 158-167; Hous- 
ton's " Nullification," pp. 54, 55 ; Stanwood's " Tariff Controversies," Vol. 
I, pp. 180, 220, 293. 

73 " Correspondence," pp. 132, 180, 206, 207, 213, 216, 236, 264. 

74 It is said that in 1829 he gave a splendid dinner in Washington to 
some eighteen editors as a means to advance his claims to the succession 
to Jackson. Letter of Coleman, editor of the " N. Y. Evening Post," to 
J. A. Hamilton, printed in the latter's " Reminiscences," pp. 126, 127. 



346 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

fallen. 75 Again, in the latter part of 1824, — when the time 
that was to witness his completed change of opinion, was com- 
ing on apace, — he told the same diarist that agriculture had 
never been so depressed in the South. 76 

Bearing in mind then these indications of Calhoun's mental 
processes during this general period, what effect was the course 
of public affairs, such as has been detailed, likely to have upon 
him, a man born in the South, knowing slavery and the negro, 
and with all his ties of affection and interest wrapped up in 
that region ? What could he think 77 when he went home for 
some months of every year and heard the universal convic- 
tion around him that grave dangers to the South were looming 
up in the development of federal affairs, that their system of 
slavery was becoming a subject of serious attack, that efforts 
were making to control their legislation on matters of vital 
State interest, and that the rapidly growing power of the 
North was aiming to exploit them by tariff laws passed en- 
tirely for the latter's benefit ? 

It is conceivable that some human beings would not have 
been greatly influenced and changed by all this, but nearly 
every man in South Carolina was so influenced, and it will be 
found that even those who in a few years absolutely rejected 
Nullification were careful to emphasize their general concur- 
rence with the South's views as to the tariff and the other 
subjects in controversy, even while they spurned the remedy 
proposed. 

It seems plain that the whole tendency of the general his- 
tory of the period was to unite Calhoun more closely with 
his section of the Union and to drive him almost irresistibly 
to take up the position of a defender of his home and her in- 
terests. And it will soon be shown that the general course 

"J. Q. Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. V, pp. 410, 411. 

»« Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 432. 

77 Perhaps a partial answer is furnished by a letter of August 12, 1827, 
from him to Micah Sterling, in which he apologizes for the delay in 
answering his correspondent, and then goes on: "The truth is, I had 
but little to say, as the course of politics is so fixed to the South" 
(Italics mine). Letter in the collection of John Gribbel, Esq., of Phila- 
delphia. 



I 



THE GROWTH OF SECTIONAL HOSTILITY 347 

of political events during the next few years did not fail to 
emphasize still more this tendency, while other causes, — ap- 
plying especially to Calhoun, — led him on still further in the 
same direction. 



CHAPTER XIII 

ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 

Further Causes Leading to Calhoun's Change — Randolph's 
Influence — A Solid South — Calhoun's New Political Faith 
— The Woolens Bill — Tariff Act of 1828— Southern Out- 
burst — South Carolina's Growing Isolation — Origin of 
Nullification — The " Exposition." 

Calhoun became Vice-President on March 4, 1825, and on 
the same day John Quincy Adams entered upon his ill-fated 
administration. From the very start it seemed destined to 
failure. A minority candidate, 1 and yet elected by the House, 
the people felt that Adams's choice had an element of unfair- 
ness in it, and to this serious handicap was shortly added his 
most unfortunate selection as Secretary of State of Henry 
Clay, who had never been a political friend and had yet very 
recently by his vote for Adams in the House been, in effect, 
the means of making the latter President. 

If even it be admitted that there was no understanding 2 
between the two men and that the never-dying charge of 
"bargain and corruption" was without actual basis to stand 
upon, yet a taint necessarily resulted from the bare facts. In- 
tense opposition sprang up at once, founded at first on these 
charges; but Adams's policies soon furnished another and 

1 Adams received but 84 of the electoral votes, i.e., less than a third. 

2 See Bassett's " Jackson," I, 368, 369, where the evidence from Adams's 
" Memoirs " is well summed up, and the conclusion reached that there 
was a " reasonable understanding." As early as January 8, 1825, even be- 
fore the election in the House, it was suspected that Clay would cast his 
influence for Adams and then have a seat in the cabinet. Joel R. Poin- 
sett wrote on that day from Washington to Joseph Hopkinson : " I can- 
not think that any such coalition can take place between Mr. Adams 
and Mr. Clay as will bring the latter into the cabinet, nor will I dis- 
guise to you that I hope not." Letter in Hopkinson collection in posses- 
sion of Edward Hopkinson, Esq., of Philadelphia. Poinsett was then a 
member of the House. 

348 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 349 

more substantial cause to those who were united against him. 
What influence did all this have on Calhoun? 

Public men do not often look on the characters of their 
competitors in the cold light of history, and are very prone 
to attribute dishonest or interested motives. Calhoun was 
clearly, — from the very start, — among those who thought 
there had been an understanding between Adams and Clay. 
He wrote in 1828 of their union as "a coalition forming a 
most dangerous precedent," 3 and in his later " Autobiogra- 
phy " 4 refers to the excitement caused when, at the time of 
the election in the House, Clay gave his vote to Adams. This 
was, of course, before the appointment of Clay as Secretary 
of State, and Calhoun says that many even then wanted to 
organize an opposition. He discountenanced this, he adds, 
and advised awaiting the development of events in order to 
see whether Clay would " place his relations and conduct to- 
wards the administration of him whom he had elected above 
all suspicion . . . but when Mr. Clay afterward took office, 
and Mr. Adams adopted, in its full extent, Mr. Clay's Ameri- 
can System, opposition to the administration from himself 
[Calhoun] and his friends followed as a matter of course. 
. . . This opposition," he goes on, " was greatly strengthened 
by the bold Federal and consolidation doctrines avowed by Mr. 
Adams in his inaugural address, and by the wild measures of 
policy which he recommended." 

Probably the latter words refer in part, at least, to the Pan- 
ama Congress, which, despite a certain glamour attaching to 
it, was yet a measure of doubtful policy and soon promised 
to lead to the discussion of questions such as all Southerners 
felt could not, — with safety to them, — be debated at the pro- 
posed meeting. Thus, it was natural enough that Calhoun 
should soon find himself one of the leaders against an ad- 
ministration, which, while beyond doubt it advocated many of 
the general policies he had favored, yet carried them infinitely 

3 Letter of September 8, 1828, to Theodore Lyman, " Correspondence," 
pp. 267-69. also printed in " Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society," Vol. XIX, pp. 280, 281. # 

* Pp. 29-31. On the early wish to form an opposition, see also J. Q. 
Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. VI, pp. 506, 507. 



: : ; LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

further than he had ever urged, and expanded them in direc- 
tions almost certain to be opposed by a Southerner, who had 
observed the tendency of political forces during the preceding 

Once in the opposition, Calhoun's tendency was necessarily 
to carp at and obstruct the policies advocated by k:s s : : .tssiul 
: =1. 5:::. is r-rry r : ■■trr.rr.tr.: His position as a political 
.::.:: :tr.it-i rre::st'y i. r.ii ir.t g-tr.tri'. rr:-:h ::' tvtrns 
in recent fears and the consequent solidifying of the South 
in self-defense, to lead him on to recast the basis of his po- 
litical and constitutional beliefs. He soon found himself as- 
sociated with many who had in the past been his opponents. 
The contest of 1825, so he wrote in his answer of May 29, 
1830.. to Jackson, " ended in an entire change of the political 
plwnpnn of the country: and in the new state of things which 
followed. I found myself acting with many of the friends of 
Mr. Crawford, to whom I had been recently opposed, and 
opposed to many of my friends, with whom I had till then been 
:t : : 
But his actual change had by no means yet come about, and 
in the spring of : : _ at a dinner given him at Augusta, he 
said in his speech,* " No one would reprobate more pointedly 
than myself, any concerted action between States, for inter- 
ested or sectional objects. I would consider all such concert 
against the spirit of our constituticr There is nothing 
to show why he spoke in particular upon this point, but per- 
haps he had reference to some phase of the factional struggle 
between himself and William Smith or had in mind the heated 
denunciations of the Tariff Act of 1824. In a later speech, at 
Abbeville, c: _ -Ji of the same year, he dwelt on his past 

course at some length, making no concealment of his general 
support of strong federal measures, and there seem to have 
been no consequent expressions of disapproval from his hear- 
rd we are told that the " day was spent in harmony and 
rational hilarir 

» " Works," Vol VI. " Ap ftrnfi x." p. 37 
«N Register,* VoL XXVIII, p. sr - 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION J51 

In this speech, 7 after referring to the necessity of " an en- 
lightened system of measures for the security of the coun- 
fay," he told his neighbors. " I gave my zealous efforts in 
favor of all such measures: the gradual increase of the navy, 
a moderate military establishment, properly organized and in- 
structed, a system of fortification for the defence of the coast, 
the restoration of specie currency, a due protection of those 
manufactures of the country which had taken root during 
the period of war and restrictions: and finally a system of 
connecting the various portions of the country by a judicious 
system of internal improvement." 

It is surprising to find him thus. — as late as 182; and in 
South Carolina. — recalling attention to his vote in favor of 
the Tariff of 1S16 and other actions of his that many had 
thought too much tinged with centralization. The incident 
seems to furnish positive proof that his change had not then 
come about. I cannot but think, however, that his letter of 
July 3. 1824. to Robert S. Garnett, 5 contains indications that 
his mind was by that date | a year earlier") somewhat drawn 
toward State Rights, and he was at least anxious to show that 
there was nothing in his record with which the advocates of 
that view could well find fault. Here we touch upon self- 
interest. There was no political future in South Carolina for 
the man who did not come to accept the views of that school. 
The State's unanimity was far too great for her long to toler- 
ate a public sen-ant who was a tariff man and in favor of those 
centralizing doctrines which recent years had led her to dread. 
Calhoun was human, and of course this influenced him. 

He has himself thrown no little light upon the mode in 
which his change of opinion was brought about. When he 
became Vice-President, he reminds us that he was transferred 
from positions of great labor. — such as he had occupied for 
fifteen years, — to one of absolute ease. The duties of his new 
office were almost nothing, its labors for the day ending al- 

■ Nifes's " Register." Vol XXVIII. pp. 265-67. 

'"Calhoun Correspondence." pp. 210. el scq. "Appendix A" to David 
F. Houston"s " Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina,"' pp. 
H3-4S- 



352 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

ways with the adjournment, while between sessions he had 
absolute rest. A student by nature, he was thus led to obser- 
vation and reflection upon public matters " from the time he 
first took his seat. Questions relating to the protective policy 
were constantly recurring in one form or another, and espe- 
cially attracted his attention and excited reflection. He was 
not long in making himself master of that policy in all its 
bearings, economical and political, and in becoming thoroughly 
satisfied that it was unconstitutional, unjust, unequal, and 
oppressive in its character and tendency, and that it must, in 
the end, if it became the established and permanent policy, 
lead to the overthrow of our free and popular system of gov- 
ernment." 9 

It would be necessary to exercise caution in accepting too 
closely this account, written in 1843, of events happening 
from fifteen to twenty years earlier, but there is other evidence 
that his change began about 1825 and that it was, moreover, 
not confined to the question of the tariff. Not only did he in 
more than one instance in subsequent years refer publicly 
and without apparent contradiction to that period as the time 
when the views of his later life were assuming shape 10 but in 
his contest of 1838 with Webster, that gentleman said in 
words : 

"When did he announce himself a State Rights man? I 
have already said, Sir, that nobody knew of his claiming that 
character until after the commencement of 1825." n 

At what date the change had gone so far as to lead him 

9 " Autobiography," p. 34. See. also, his speech in the Senate on March 
10, 1838, printed in "Works," Vol. Ill, p. 278, and Jenkins's "Life," p. 160. 

10 In 1837, at the time when his support of Van Buren was leading to 
violent criticism, he wrote to a public paper: "I live but to carry out 
the great principles for which I have been contending since 1824." 
Niles's " Register," Vol. LI 1 1, p. 33. Again, on June 4, 1840, in a letter 
declining an invitation to address the New York Democracy on July 4, 
he wrote, after outlining the political history of the country: "For 
sixteen years my efforts have been incessantly directed to counteract 
the policy of that school of politics to which I stand opposed, and ad- 
vance that on which I solemnly believe, the salvation of our institutions 
depends." ..." Works," Vol. VI, pp. 313-18. See almost the same state- 
ment in another public letter of his in 1843, Niles's " Register," Vol. 
LXIV, pp. 382, 383. 

"Webster's "Works" (ed. 1851). Vol. IV, pp. 500 el seq.; 516; also 
see p. 511. 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 353 

conclusively to the beliefs of his later life as to the nature 
of our government can, naturally enough, not be determined, 
but it will be shown to have certainly occurred before the sum- 
mer of 1827. He himself tells us that Madison's Report 
of 1799 was a leading factor in bringing about his change. 
Speaking of Madison on February 18, 1837, he said in the 
Senate : 

But there was another act, which would immortalize him in the 
eye of posterity — the profound and glorious views which he 
took of our Government in his celebrated Virginia report. In 
his opinion, that was by far the ablest document that issued 
from the pen of Mr. Madison — one from which Mr. Calhoun 
had derived more information and a profounder insight into our 
Government, than all the other documents he had penned. 12 

It should be remembered also that it was in December of 
this same year, 1825, that the Smith resolutions 1S were passed 
by the South Carolina Legislature. They spoke strongly for 
State Rights, but were chiefly induced by the rivalry of leaders, 
were opposed by Calhoun's friends, and at least portions of 
them must have been bitter medicine to him. It is not im- 
possible, however, that the leisure o*f his new office had led 
him during that very same summer of 1825 to begin his new 
reading as to the nature of our Government, and that he was 
already secretly inclined to admit the truth of some of their 
assertions as to fundamental principles. However this may 
be, we shall find several hints of a tendency of his in that di- 
rection during the Congressional session of 1825-26. 

Randolph was then a member of the Senate, and some 
writers have thought that the eccentric Virginian had a large 
share in leading Calhoun to the revision of his beliefs. Such 
changes are, however, probably in general gradual, and it seems 
to me far more likely that Calhoun had by that date in great 
part made his change, and that it was due to the growth since 
1820, of that opposition to slavery, which has been already 
traced, and the consequent union of Southern men in defense 
of their rights. There is, too, the evidence of one compe- 

12 Congressional Debates, Vol. XIII. Part I, 1836-37. P- 853. 
^Ante, pp. 276, 277. 



354 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

tent observer, whose language seems to imply that Calhoun 
held by 1826 the Southern view on most leading questions and 
that slavery was uppermost in his mind. During a long dis- 
sertation upon public affairs in 1826, writes Josiah Quincy, 14 
Calhoun " never alluded to the subject of slavery, though it 
was easy to see that reference to this interest shaped his 
opinions about tariffs, state rights, internal improvements, and 
other questions, with which, on the surface, it had small 
connection." 

Besides this, Randolph's methods were by no means con- 
spicuous for that gentle suavity that makes converts. 

" Sir," he had said on one occasion in the House at a recent 
session, with evident reference in part to Calhoun, " the blind- 
ness, as it appears to me, — I hope gentlemen will pardon the 
expression, — with which a certain portion of this Country, — 
I allude in particular to the seaboard of South Carolina and 
Georgia, — has lent its aid to increase the powers of the gen- 
eral government on points, to say the least, of doubtful con- 
struction fills me with astonishment and dismay." 15 

And again, referring to the power of internal improvements, 
of which Calhoun was a leading supporter, he had insisted that, 
if Congress possessed it, " they may emancipate every slave 
in the United States." This they might do, he said, " under 
the war power," or as the general result of all the powers rather 
than of any particular one. 16 And yet again he told his 
brethren of the South " we are the eel that is being flayed." 17 

There is nothing to show that Calhoun heard or read these 
rather acrid remarks concerning himself and his opinions; but 
at the session of 1825-26 Randolph occupied a seat in the 
Senate, of which Calhoun was then the presiding officer. The 

1 4 " Figures of the Past," p. 263. This was probably written many 
years afterward, and Quincy possibly may have injected into 1826 views 
in reality enounced much later. 

» Henry Adams's " Randolph," p. 281. Calhoun was not strictly of 
the seaboard, but he had extensive connections in Charleston, and was 
doubtless too conspicuous not to be among those actually in Randolph's 

mind. , 

"Annals of Congress, Eighteenth Congress, First Session, 1823-2-4. 
Vol. I, p. 1308. Henrv Adams's " Randolph," pp. 276, 277. 

1 7 Annals of Congress, Fighteenth Congress, First Session, 1823-24, 
Vol. II, p. 2379. Henry Adams's "Randolph," p. 279. 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 355 

latter was very regular in attendance and beyond doubt heard 
many or most of the Roanoke member's harangues. It is 
quite evident that there was about this time a rapprochement 18 
between the two men, who had hardly been friends thereto- 
fore. Thus, on February 1, 1826, Randolph wrote to a 
friend : 19 

Yesterday, we had a very interesting debate, in which I took 
part. ... It drew upon me a great many handsome and flat- 
tering compliments; and from one quarter, my friend Benton (for 
I was on his side), I believe sincere. We differed from the pre- 
siding officer upon what Mr. J. would call a " speck " on the 
political horizon, but it turned out to be of vital importance as 
we probed it. It was laid over for mature consideration. After 
the debate, and while some Indian treaties were being read, Mr. 
C. sent for me, and said, that the question had assumed a new 
and important aspect — required solemn consideration and de- 
cision — my views were strong and important, &c. &c. He then 
sent for Mr. B. and told him much the same. He electioneers 
with great assiduity. 

About a month later, after a debate in secret session on 
Friday, February 24th, on the question of sending Ministers 
to Panama, in which Randolph had evidently taken a leading 
part, he wrote 20 that he was probably as accessible to flattery 
as other men, and then went on : 

The Vice-President has actually made love to me. ... In short, 
Friday's affair has been praised on all hands in a style that might 
have gorged the appetite of Cicero himself. 

Again on March 2, the rambling Virginian indulged in one 
of his long harangues, but scattered through it here and there 

1S In February 1827, toward the end of the session and shortly after 
Randolph's defeat for reelection to the Senate. Calhoun asked him to 
drive home in his (Calhoun's) carriage, and Randolph thought of ac- 
cepting. Garland's "Randolph," Vol. IT, p. 285. . 

19 Ibid., p. 26?. The debate concerned the nomination of Daniel Bis- 
sell to be a cofonel of artillery, which was a long-standing controversy 
with the Executive, growing out of an earlier act for reducing the army. 
The nomination was laid upon the table on January 31, and an Indian 
treaty at once taken up. " Executive Journal of the Senate." 

20 Henry Adams's " Randolph," p. 288. Garland's " Randolph," pp. 267, 
268. 



356 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

true flashes of genius. Referring to emancipation and the 
opinion of some that slavery should never be brought into 
public notice, he said in the Senate: 21 

Sir ... I differ from them toto ccclo. Sir, it is a thing which 
cannot be hid — it is not a dry rot which you can cover with the 
carpet, until the house tumbles about your ears — you might as 
well try to hide a volcano in full operation — it cannot be hid — 
it is a cancer in your face, and must be treated secundum artem. 
... A small danger menacing an inestimable object, is of more 
importance in the eyes of a wise man, than the greatest danger 
which can possibly threaten an object of minor consequence. 
The question before us is, is this an object of inestimable con- 
sequence? I do not put the question to you, sir. I know what 
your answer will be. I know what will be the answer of every 
husband, father, son and brother, throughout the Southern States ; 
I know that on this depends the honor of ever}'' matron and 
maiden . . . between the Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico. [All 
my early feelings were against slavery and I was a member of the 
Colonization Society but never had much faith in it. They 
had two languages. Affecting to be only for abolition of the 
Slave Trade], they had another object — they had an object in 
view, which now they have the courage to declare, for which 
they have very lately united themselves into an anti-slavery so- 
ciety. . . . The Crusades . . . were incomparably more worthy, 
more desirable, in the object, more wise in the means taken to 
attain it, than this modern black crusade. ... I may be told that 
the principles of these South American States are the princi- 
ples that were of high authority on another question — the Mis- 
souri question — are the principles of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. . . . These principles, pushed to their extreme con- 
sequences — that all men are born free and equal — I can never 
assent to. . . . [Let slavery alone and] the disease will run its 
course — it has run its course in the Northern States ; it is begin- 
ning to run its course in Maryland. The natural death of slavery 
is the unprofitableness of its most expensive labor. I am con- 
tent to act the part of Cassandra, to lift up my voice, whether 
it be heeded, or heard only to be disregarded, until too late. . . . 

Much of this was very striking and seems to-day to have 

21 Congressional Debates, Vol. II, Part I, 1825-26 (Nineteenth Con- 
gress, First Session), pp. 1 17-132. 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 357 

contained almost a note of prophecy, but would hardly have 
had much effect then except on a mind ripened for its accept- 
ance by some cause. If uttered prior to the Missouri contest 
and the growing opposition to slavery, almost every one in 
the country would have regarded it as senseless braying and 
the author as a mere prophet of ill. I cannot but think that 
such would have been conspicuously its effect on the Calhoun 
of 1 8 10-19, and that therefore we must suppose that a deep 
impression had been made on him between 1820 and 1825. 
But with his mind prepared by the events of that time, and feel- 
ing the evident struggle between the North and South looming 
up as a nightmare of danger to his waning section, the words 
of Randolph of course contributed their part to convince him 
of the necessity to his home of the new views that had already 
broken in upon him. 

During the session of 1825-26, too, occurred the dispute 
as to whether Calhoun should not, as presiding officer, have 
called Randolph to order for some of his attacks upon Adams 
and Clay, and in the spring and summer of 1826 " Patrick 
Henry " and " Onslow " had their wordy duel. The dispute 
was very acrimonious and a subject much noticed by the 
public. At a dinner to Calhoun at Pendleton in the autumn, 
the toast to him compared " his protection of liberty's citadel, 
the freedom of debate " with his conduct during the War of 
1812. 22 

Nothing seems to have survived to show Calhoun's occupa- 
tion or special interests during the latter part of 1826, after 
the adjournment of Congress on May 22nd, but matters of 
vital moment to us here occurred during the session of 1826-27, 
and there is positive proof that during the year 1827 — at a 
date when his Presidential hopes must still have been high 
— he had entirely changed his views and had spoken in a 
way to show clearly that State Rights and the Southern views 
in general had come to be cardinal points of his political 
faith. 

It was at this session of 1826-27 that the Woolens Bill, 
putting still higher duties on woolen goods, was introduced 

22Niles's "Register," Vol. XXXI (October 7, 1826), pp. 94, 95. 



358 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

and passed by the House. In the Senate it was known that 
the vote on a motion to lay on the table would be very close, 
and Van Buren is said to have cunningly devised the plan of 
bringing about a tie, so as to force Calhoun to give the casting 
vote and thus incur the odium of whichever course he might 
take. Van Buren was actually present when the vote was 
taken, but remained silent, and the vote was even. 23 Calhoun 
at once voted Aye, and thus the bill was shelved and lost for 
that session and Calhoun doubtless a marked and detested man 
in all tariff circles. 

Probably he was quite as much an object of admiration 
throughout the South, where there was at once an outburst 
against the attempted increase. Georgia, North Carolina, and 
Alabama all passed resolutions, 24 the general tenor of which 
was to recommend resistance, and in South Carolina numerous 
meetings of protest were called. The most conspicuous of 
these was held in Columbia on July 2nd, was presided over 
by the Governor; and here it was that Cooper made his 
well-known address, 25 in which he said that they would " ere- 
long, be forced to calculate the value of our Union." About 
the same time, too, was printed in the Charleston Mercury a 
series of articles called " The Crisis," by " Brutus," or Robert 
J. Turnbull, 20 in which State Rights doctrines of high flavor, 
but by no means the real Nullification of 1832-33, were ad- 
vocated. 

23 Stanwood's " Tariff Controversies," Vol. I, p. 258. 

24 " State Documents on Federal Relations," by Herman V. Ames, pp. 
146-151. 

25 Niles's " Register " of September 8, 1827, quoted in McMaster's 
" United States," Vol. V, pp. 248, 249 ; " South Carolina during Nullifica- 
tion," by Gaillard Hunt, in " Political Science Quarterly," Vol. VI (1891), 
p. 238. 

26 " The Crisis " is also to be found in pamphlet form. It was answered 
at great length by " Hamilton " in the Charleston " Courier," in a series 
of at least 28 letters, appearing from November 1, 1827, to February 12, 
1828. It has been thought that Turnbull was the real originator of 
Nullification, but his papers did not get any nearer to it than is shown 
in the text, and one might with far greater truth say that Calhoun 
adopted the doctrine from Troup's Georgia contest or from the still 
earlier Massachusetts cases. All of these and several other instances 
contributed to the growth of Nullification, while Turnbull added nothing. 
Calhoun beyond question formulated and created the doctrine of 1832-33. 
The co-temporary "Book of Nullification" (Henry D. Capers's "Life 









ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 359 

" I do not admit," wrote the author, with some of the 
essentials of both Secession and Nullification floating in his 
mind, as they had floated in many minds throughout the coun- 
try at various times in the past, " the monstrous doctrine that 
a State can rebel." And he urged South Carolina to will that 
she would not submit to the tariff. How far he was from any 
real understanding of orthodox Nullification is shown, when 
he writes : " To talk of resistance to the tariff by all consti- 
tutional means, is to talk to no purpose. ... It is to talk of 
submission, not resistance." And the following may serve 
as a sample of his heat " In all cases where slavery is pro- 
posed to be brought into discussion, let us say distinctly to 
Congress 'Hands off! — Mind your own business.' If this 
fails, let us separate. It is not a case for reasoning or for 
negotiation. It must be a word and a blow." 27 

Similar views were no doubt held at that time by many 
throughout the South, and Calhoun's letters during the sum- 
mer show conclusively that, barring the violence, he was in 
pretty full unison with these wide-spread opinions. He wrote 
his intimates that our system had reached a vital point in its 
progress, the magnitude of which was realized by few. The 
policies advocated had greatly inflamed the public mind, he 
went on, and among them was " one, in particular, that, in 
my opinion, even threatens danger to the Union, I mean that 
of arraying the great geographical interests of the Union 
against one another ... the South has commenced remon- 
strating against this unjust and oppressive attempt to sacrifice 
their interest [the Woolens Bill and the proposed Harrisburg 
Convention] ; and, I do trust, that they will not be provoked 
to step beyond strict constitutional remedies. . . ." 28 

It would be interesting to know whether these last words in- 
dicate that State Interposition or Veto, as he called it a year 
later, had already found lodgment in his mind, under the influ- 

of C. G. Memminger," "Appendix," p. 579) has it that Calhoun wrote 
letters to Turnhull and made him helieve in Nullification. 

27" Essays," No. 31, p. 151, and No. 27, p. 137. 

28 Letters of August 26, to his hrother-in-law, James Edward Calhoun, 
and of July 23, 1827, to Christopher Van Deventer. " Correspondence," 
pp. 245, 246, 247-251. 



360 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

ence of Madison's Report, but one can only draw one's own 
conclusions upon this point. To me, it seems difficult to 
attach any other actual meaning to them, when used, as they 
were, by a statesman, and presumably with some view to 
effective action. Remonstrance and resolution were already by 
that time about exhausted. 

Again, there is nothing to show whether the South Carolina 
Legislative Resolutions - 9 of that year reflect in part his 
mind; but they at least breathe in places those views as to 
the nature of our government, of which he was henceforth 
the greatest defender. " The Constitution of the United 
States," so ran the report of the Senate Committee, " is not 
a compact between the people of the United States at large 
with each other, but is the result of a compact originally 
formed between the people of thirteen separate and indepen- 
dent sovereignties, to produce and constitute a new form of 
government," and the first resolution embodied this idea, which 
is intensely Calhoun-like, though of far earlier origin, so far as 
its main idea is concerned. 

The second resolution was to the effect that the tariff 
laws, " the object of which is not the raising of revenue or 
the regulation of foreign commerce but the promotion of 
domestic manufactures, are violations of the Constitution in 
its spirit and ought to be repealed," while the third, and 
only other one important to us here, put the same ban of 
unconstitutionality on laws for building roads and canals and 
was thus hardly likely to be altogether pleasing to Calhoun. 

Whether or not he had a hand in drawing these resolutions, 
it is at least amply clear 30 that by their date he had made 

29 South Carolina Acts, &c, 1827, pp. 68, 69. John Ramsay, S. D. 
Miller, H. Deas, Alfred Huger, D. R. Evans, W. B. Seabrook, and Catlet 
Conner constituted the Senate Committee, and their report was presented 
by Ramsay. Mr. Hunt ("Calhoun," p. 80), says that the report was 
written by Turnbull. It and the resolutions smack far more of Nulli- 
fication than did the earlier " Crisis." 

*>Mr. Hunt ("Calhoun," p. 68) thinks that Calhoun's letter of July 
10, 1828, shows that even as late as its date he had not formulated Nulli- 
fication. The letter is addressed to Monroe, and its material parts, after 
referring to the excitement in the South over the tariff and the un- 
equal operation of the system in different parts of the country: are "I 
greatly fear, that the weak part of our system will be found to consist in 
the fact that in a country of such vast extent and diversity of interest, 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 361 

his change and had become fully convinced of the truth of 
the State Rights theories. His quoted letters seem almost to 
prove this, and complete demonstration is added by a letter 
of his close political friend, Judge John McLean, dated .Sep- 
tember 25, 1 83 1, to Samuel L. Gouverneur, 31 in regard to the 
then approaching Presidential contest of 1832-33. McLean 
reviews the whole field, including his own chances as the anti- 
Masonic candidate and says : 

Our friend Calhoun is gone, I fear, forever. For four years 
past he has been infatuated, with his southern doctrines. In him 
they originated. He has shown a most extraordinary infatuation 
in the prosecution of this subject. I have no doubt, he believed, 
that he could consolidate the South, carry Pennsylvania, and 
bring over the West. He will not sustain himself any where, not 
even in his own state. In the west, the doctrine is as unpopular, 
and I believe more so, than the principles of the Hartford con- 
vention. 

This language is, of course, not to be interpreted as meaning 
four years to a day or a month; and if Calhoun about four 
years preceding September 25, 183 1, spoke of his new beliefs 
with sufficient clearness for McLean to be able to write those 
words, it is amply apparent that for a considerable number of 

many of the laws will be found to act very unequally, and that some por- 
tions of the country may be enriched by legislation at the expense of 
others. It seems to me that we have no other check against abuses, but 
such as grow out of responsibility, or election, and while this is an 
effectual check, where the law acts equally on all, it is none in the case 
of the unequal action to which I refer." But I cannot think this one 
sentence in a single private letter can be held to have any such broad 
effect and to contradict what he says in the " Autobiography " of his 
course during that summer, later speeches of his own, the direct words 
of McLean, quoted infra in the text, and the many other indications I 
have cited. He probably had in mind the known and established checks, 
and the very next sentence refers clearly to some other remedy : " One 
thing seems to me certain, that the system is getting wrong and if a speedy 
and effective remedy be not applied a shock at no long interval may be 
expected." Did not these words mean Nullification, in his mind? Rut 
that doctrine had not yet been even promulgated, so that he would have 
had to write a treatise to put the high prerogative remedy before his 
far from sympathetic correspondent. 

31 Monroe Papers in Library of Congress. Dr. Schouler was, I think, 
the first to call attention to this letter. " History of United States," 
Vol. IV, p. 442. I have a copy of it. 



362 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

months, and probably for one or more years, the new light had 
been breaking in upon him. 

It is quite possible that the desire for a political career in 
South Carolina may have been one of the more or less con- 
scious causes leading him to take up and develop the views 
popular at home, but how it is conceivable, as is often believed, 
that his burning ambition to be President led him to this fate- 
ful step is hard to conceive. If he really made the awful 
blunder of foresight that McLean attributes to him, it was 
probably the worst in his long career, and later pages will 
show, too, that in a few years there was quite a period during 
which those very flames of Presidential aspiration led him in 
the opposite direction, so that he hesitated to follow with 
his associates and take the cold plunge into sectionalism, which 
visibly meant the abandonment, for a time at least, of that 
fabric of hope that he had built up at such pains and that 
had such siren attraction for him. 

Events of vast moment in the history of Calhoun, as well as 
of the United States, were now hurrying on apace. The 
tariff interests did not rest with the defeat of the Woolens 
Bill of 1827, and evidently thought the time of an approach- 
ing Presidential election opportune for renewed efforts. Ac- 
cordingly, during the summer a Tariff Convention met at Har- 
risburg, Pennsylvania. About one hundred delegates attended, 
representing the woolen and various other interests, and added 
their united voices to the agitation for higher rates on many 
articles. All this was of course watched with anxiety at the 
South 32 and contributed beyond doubt to the temper shown 
by Cooper and other hotheads in that quarter of the Union. 

When Congress met in December of 1827, some have 
thought there was evident for a time a desire on the part of 
leaders to delay the subject and, at least, the taking of testi- 
mony on certain points was insisted upon by them, but on 
January 31, the fateful " Bill of Abominations," — as it was 
dubbed 33 by Senator Samuel Smith of Maryland, a pro-tariff 

32 Calhoun wrote of the agitation to his brother-in-law on August 26, 
1827, with marked anxiety. " Correspondence," pp. 250, 251. 

"Webster in speech in "Works" (edition of 1851), Vol. II, pp. 237, 
240. I do not think it is always borne in mind that this term originated 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 363 

man, — was brought in. It was a strange medley, beyond 
question far more due to political maneuvering than to the 
public needs. The rates contained were in general very high, 
but the exact parentage of the measure is hard to ascertain. 
The latest writer on the subject, an advocate of protection, says 
that nothing could be more difficult than to free this law from 
the mystery surrounding it. A committee of the House, he 
goes on, a majority of which was against protection, reports 
a bill following most of the details of the Harrisburg Con- 
vention plan, but rejecting their proposal as to woolen goods, 
while iron, hemp, flax, molasses, spirits, and cotton prints were 
given perhaps more than ample protection. 34 

Both the Adams and Jackson following charged that the 
bill originated in the evil design of the other to win the elec- 
tion by driving its opponents into a position of great party 
difficulty. On the whole it is fairly clear that the plan of 
a new law containing still higher rates, urged by the Harris- 
burg Convention and the protectionists in general, had been 
originated by the supporters of Adams with the hope of de- 
feating Jackson. The latter, whose support was very strong 
in some highly protective as well as in some free trade sec- 
tions, could ill afford to let his friends vote against such 
a measure and thereby imperil his chances in Pennsylvania 
and other strong Tariff States. But Jackson's managers were 
not to be caught by any such trap. They had the upper hand 
in Congress; and accordingly not only did his friends in the 
end draw the bill but they controlled it as well and numbers of 
his staunch supporters voted in its favor. Perhaps honors 
were easy, and neither side was overly clean. 35 

with the friends of protection and had reference chiefly to some high 
rates very much opposed in the Eastern States. It was, however, fully 
adopted by the Southerners, but in their mouths referred to quite other 
provisions. 

34 Stanwood's "Tariff Controversies," Vol. I, pp. 270, 271. See also 
Taussig's " Tariff History," pp. 84-100, and Jenkins's " Silas Wright," pp. 
53-6o. 

35 Calhoun said in his speech to repeal the Force Rill (" Works," Vol. 
II, pp. 216, 396) that the Presidential election of 1828 soon ran off onto 
the tariff question, and those in power sought to take it up as theirs, 
while some of our allies were led to zeal in the same direction. Benton's 
opinion was much the same. Meigs's " Benton," pp. 251, 253. 



364 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Mallary, the chairman of the committee on Manufactures 
was opposed to the plan agreed upon by his associates, and 
Silas Wright drew the bill. 36 There can be no doubt that 
it was purposely framed with the view of being so distasteful 
to New England that her members would vote against it and 
thus insure defeat. This was, indeed, admitted on the floor 
both then and later. 37 Her manufactured goods were accord- 
ingly given little protection, while articles she bought for con- 
sumption or as raw materials for her mills, were taxed 
high. 

As a further step towards the defeat of the bill, assurances 
were, — according to Calhoun's assertion in 1837, 38 — in effect 
given by Wright to members from the South that amend- 
ments would not be permitted, and hence the Southerners per- 
sistently voted even against reductions, in order to preserve 
a united front and keep the bill as unpalatable to New Eng- 
land as possible. One of the Southern members said 39 later 
that they " determined to put such ingredients in the chalice 
as would poison the monster. . . . This is what is sometimes 
called ' fighting the devil with fire.' " They evidently counted 
with absolute confidence on New England's voting solidly 
against the bill. Wright at a later day admitted having given 
the assurances, but said he had done " all he could to unde- 
ceive [the Southern members], but he could not succeed. 
He told them repeatedly that the New Englanders would end 
by voting for it and the bill pass." 40 

38 John S. Jenkins's " Life of Silas Wright," pp. 57-62. R. H. Gillet's 
" Life and Times of Silas Wright," pp. 127, 130. 

37 Thos. R. Mitchell in Congressional Debates, Vol. IV, Part II, Twen- 
tieth Congress, First Session (1827-28), p. 2344. McDuffie, in "Con- 
gressional Globe," Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session (1843-44), 
" Appendix," p. 747, cited in Houston's " Nullification," pp. 34, 35. 

38 Speech in Senate on February 23, 1837, " Works," Vol. Ill, pp. 47~53. 
or Congressional Debates, Vol. IV, pp. 862, 870. See also " Autobiog- 
raphy," pp. 32, S3, and letters of October 23rd and December 4th, 1843, 
in " Correspondence," pp. 550, 552". 

30 McDuffie in speech of 1843, cited immediately above. 

40 Speech in Senate on February 23, 1837, in answer to Calhoun's charge 
of bad faith, Congressional Debates, Vol. XIII, Part I (1836-37), p. 921. 
See also Jenkins's " Wright," pp. 53-60. Van Buren and some few others 
did vote for the amendments wanted by New England, so that Calhoun 
had cause of complaint ; but there seems to bo no proof that Wright 
was implicated in the change. 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 565 

The Southerners seem at first to have considered 41 whether 
their best course would be to unite with the New Englanders 
and amend the bill (presumably by reductions in the high 
rates obnoxious to her, and possibly by moderate raises on 
her manufactured goods), so as to make it more palatable; but 
this course would have fixed the system on the country more 
solidly than ever, so they concluded to rest on the assurances 
given. The risk then run was that the East might unite, — 
as, in the event, it did, — at a later stage with the Middle and 
Western States in favor of amendments acceptable to both 
and thus secure the passage of a law. Calhoun evidently had 
a large part in these not-inspiring manceuvers resorted to un- 
der the stress of great difficulties. Warren R. Davis of South 
Carolina, his close friend, was a member of the committee 
with Wright, and was evidently the actual intermediary for 
the South. 42 

The bill was, beyond all doubt, very largely, — or chiefly, — 
intended for protection and not for revenue, and at a late 
stage in the House, Drayton of South Carolina and others 
moved to insert in the title a declaration of this purpose, of 
course wth the design of raising judicially the question of the 
constitutionality of protection; but the proposed amendments 
were all at once cut out by the previous question. The bill, 
then, passed in the House, April 22, by 105 Yeas to 94 Nays. 
Out of 58 votes from seven Southern States, there were 49 
Nays, 3 Yeas from Virginia, and 6 members not voting. 43 

In the Senate, so Calhoun tells us in the already quoted 
speech of 1837, the New England members were so generally 
opposed to the bill that the Southerners 

. . . Anticipated with confidence and joy that the bill would be 
defeated, and the whole system overthrown by the shock. Our 
hopes were soon blasted. A certain individual [Van Buren], 

"Calhoun's "Works," Vol. Ill, pp. 47-53- 
42 Wright's Speech of February 23, 1837, referred to ahove. 
^Congressional Debates, Vol. IV, Part II, 1827-28, pp. 2471. 2472. See 
the Charleston "Courier" of April 30, 1828. Calhoun wrote in his post- 
humous "Discourse on the Constitution," etc. ("Works." Vol. I, pp. .VM. 
365) that the hill of 1828 was avowedly for protection, and was the first 
instance in which this purpose was avowed. 



366 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

then a Senator but recently elected to the highest office in the 
Union, was observed to assume a mysterious air in relation to the 
bill, very little in accordance with what, there was every reason 
to believe, would have been his course. The mystery was ex- 
plained when the bill came up to be acted upon. I will not give 
in detail his course. It is sufficient to say, that instead of re- 
sisting amendments, as we had a right to expect, he voted for all 
which were necessary to secure the votes of New England; par- 
ticularly the amendments to raise the duties on woolens which 
were known to be essential for that purpose. All these amend- 
ments, with one or two exceptions, were carried by his votes, as 
appears from the journal, now on my table, which I have re- 
cently examined. If his name had been recorded on the opposite 
side, they would have been lost, and with them the bill itself. 
He held, at this critical juncture, the fate of the country in his 
hands. 

At one time it was thought that the friends of the adminis- 
tration would arrange to make a tie in the Senate, so as to force 
Calhoun to vote against the measure, and thus probably defeat 
the Jackson ticket. Calhoun was then urged by his friends to 
absent himself and escape the difficulty for himself and Jack- 
son; and he was reminded that, if he were absent and there 
was a tie, the bill would be equally defeated. But he promptly 
refused and added that his vote against the bill " should not 
hurt General Jackson's election, for in that event his name 
should be withdrawn from the ticket as Vice-President." 44 

Little share was taken by the South in the progress of the 
bill through either branch. In the House, McDuffie said 45 
that their members had maintained " almost without excep- 
tion, a profound but expressive silence," while in the Senate 
Hayne proclaimed that the measure could assume no shape 
to make it acceptable to him, and added that " with these 
views, he had determined to make no motion to amend the bill 
in any respect whatever." 46 Finally, when the contingency 

""Autobiography," p. 34. 

* 5 Congressional Debates, Vol. IV, Part II. pp. 1827-28, p. 2382. Mc- 
Duffie himself, however, and Hamilton and Martin did speak against the 
bill in the end, — shortly before the final vote. 

*« Ibid., p. 770. 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 367 

feared by the South had occurred and the bill had been suf- 
ficiently amended, it passed the Senate on May 13 by 26 to 21, 
and Hayne entered " a solemn protest against it as a partial, 
unjust, and unconstitutional measure." 47 The Senators from 
the Southern States voted Nay by an overwhelming majority. 
The bill was signed by Adams on May 19. 

There was at once among the Southerners an outburst 
against the " Bill of Abominations." A few days after its 
passage two meetings of the South Carolina members of Con- 
gress were held at Hayne's home in Washington. Anti-tariff 
men from other States had also been sounded, and some sup- 
port found among them; but the difference of opinion was so 
great that they were not asked to attend. 

One suggestion made at these meetings was to spread a pro- 
test on the records of Congress, and there was shown " a high 
degree of excitement at this new act of injustice against our 
constituents which had been marked by circumstances of un- 
kindness, not to say bad faith, on the part of some of our po- 
litical friends, which filled us with indignation and dismay. 
In the course of a very animated conversation," Hamilton said 
that, as soon as the bill was engrossed, he had decided to go 
home, resign his commission, and explain himself to his con- 
stituents. To this McDuffie added his opinion that persis- 
tence in the tariff must lead to disunion, but these ideas were 
strongly disapproved by Drayton and perhaps others. There 
was also some discussion of the possibility of coercion ; but 
the answer was that the Federal army was a bare handful, and 
the sister States would not permit the marching of an army 
designed for that purpose. It was evidently an excited 

47 I do not think it has been generally observed that this turn of phrase, 
which is to be found with variations in many of the Southern resolutions 
of the time (See for example the "South Carolina Exposition and Pro- 
test"), was evidently adopted from the like earlier proceedings in New 
England. The Resolutions of the Massachusetts Legislature of i8oo 
declared the embargo "unjust, oppressive and unconstitutional and not 
legally binding on the citizens of this State," and the Faneuil Hall Resolu- 
tions of March 31, 181 t, resolved that the Non-Intercourse Act of March 
2nd was "unjust, oppressive and tyrannical." Schouler's "United States," 
Vol. IT, pp. 102, 323, 324: McMaster's "United States," Vol. Ill, pp. 3.^0, 
422. Ames's " State Documents on Federal Relations," pp. 34, 35. 



368 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

meeting of hot-headed and angry men, and probably 
some very ultra conversation came from the Hotspurs; but 
there was no unanimity, and the idea of action was aban- 
doned. 48 

These meetings were probably, — especially after their out- 
come, — not designed for public knowledge; but one member 
of the delegation (Thomas R. Mitchell) wrote to the press 
about them, and they became a subject of controversy, chiefly 
between him and Hayne. There is no actual evidence that 
Calhoun had any part in the meetings, and it is clear he was 
not present, but it may probably be assumed that he knew 
of them and his course for a number of years indicates that 
he would have been in favor of mild counsels and opposed 
to the advocates of resigning in passion as well as to their 
hints at disunion. 

In several Southern States, meetings were held to denounce 
the New Tariff Act, and the Legislatures of Georgia, Alabama, 
Mississippi, and Virginia all adopted protests and memorials. 49 
It will be enough, however, to follow here the course of events 
in South Carolina. So fast did the opposition grow and so 
ultra a shape did it assume that, as soon as June 5. a writer 
in the Charleston Courier said : 

There was a time when the public sensibility on the ques- 
tion of disunion was such, that we could not even have tolerated 
the suggestion of its possibility. Little did any one imagine that 
the time was so nigh when it should be publicly proclaimed in 
our streets. ... It is known that application has been made to 
the Governor to convene the Legislature. A memorial plainly 
indicating its object has been circulated for signatures, and if 
it has not succeeded, it is because it has been repelled by the 
sound sense of a virtuous community. 

For what purpose convene the Legislature, if not to cloak and 
sanction the violent designs of individuals. . . . Revolutionary 
purposes alone were in contemplation. 

•sNiles's "Register," Vol. XXXV (1828-29), pp. 183. 184, 185, 195. 
190-201, 230-34. I have summed up as fairly as I can what seems to have 
really occurred at these meetings. See also J. Q. Adams's " Memoirs," 
Vol. 'VIII. p. 83. 

*° Ames's " State Documents on Federal Relations, ' pp. 152-157- 

so The Charleston "Courier" of June 19, 1828. 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 369 

On June 12 at a meeting at Walterborough, 50 in the Col- 
leton District, addresses to the People of South Carolina and 
to the Governor were adopted on motion of Robert Barnwell 
Smith (later Rhett), in which the people were reminded of 
their having, the past Summer, come together in Districts all 
over the State and declared to Congress (in reply to the Wool- 
ens Bill) that the protective tariff was contrary to their char- 
tered rights. The Legislature also had repeated what it had 
said in 1824 and sent a protest to Congress, but all in vain. 
The address to the people advised " an attitude of open resis- 
tance to the laws of the Union," while that to the Governor 
urged that the Legislature be called together, and went on 
that the situation "requires national 51 consultation, either in 
Legislature or Convention." At a dinner given to McDuffie 
and Martin at Columbia, on their return from' Washington, 
the former said : "It was insufferable. None but a coward 
could longer consent to bear such a state of things. ... It 
would have been better for their representatives to have quit the 
capital and to have come home." 

He proposed for a toast: 

" Millions for defense, not a cent for tribute." 

At a very large meeting at Edgefield on July 26, at which 
3000 people, " all clothed in homespun," were said to be pres- 
ent, 52 non-intercourse with the tariff States was urged, and 
the same action was again called for on October 1 at Cal- 
houn's old home, Abbeville, at a meeting that was thought to 
have been attended by as many as 5000 persons. 53 A large 
planter had earlier, — in the Courier, 54 — urged his brother 
planters " to come to a firm resolution not to purchase any 
Northern cloth for their domestics." " Leonidas " advo- 
cated 55 prohibitory duties on all Northern manufactures after 
they should become incorporated with the goods in general, 
and also that the Southerners should manufacture their own 

81 Perhaps some reader will hardly observe that this referred to action 
by South Carolina. 

82 The Charleston " Mercury " of August 2, 1828. 
""Mercury" of October 3, 1828. 

B * Ibid., June, 9, 1828. 
88 Ibid., July 18, 1828. 



370 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

wearing apparel, raise their own animals, and cease buying 
from Kentucky. 

Non-intercourse with the tariff States and non-consump- 
tion of protected articles were remedies often suggested, but 
the use of homespun seems to have been the favorite of these 
weapons drawn from the quiver of ancient days. 56 As late as 
the next December, at the meeting of Congress, McDuffie and 
some other Southern members appeared in homespun. 57 A 
tax to be levied in one way or another on Northern goods was 
also proposed, 58 and Calhoun seems, in preparing the " Expo- 
sition," 59 to have favored an excise duty upon them. 

The agitation spread widely over the State, and the people 
were practically unanimous against the tariff. Even the Un- 
ionists, while denouncing the policy of Nullification, were 
nearly always careful to express their opposition to protection, 
and some conspicuous instances to this effect will be cited 
later. During the years 1827—28, memorials, remonstrances, 
and petitions against the tariff were received in Congress and 
printed from the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, from 
a meeting of Agriculturists, from the Agricultural Society of 
St. John's and from that of St. Andrew's, from the citizens of 
Abbeville, Orangeburg, Edgefield, and Beaufort, and from 
fourteen meetings throughout the State describing themselves 
simply as " Citizens of South Carolina," as well as from the 
Legislature. And this list co is probably far from complete, 
for Hayne said in his Charleston speech 01 of July 4, 1831, 

5B Ibid., July 9, 12, 16, and 22 ; August 4 ; September 8 and 10 ; October 
7, 1828. 
67 Charleston " Courier " of December 15, 1828. 
38 Charleston " Mercury " of July 7, 1828. 
5» " Works," Vol. VI, p. 57- 

60 My list is taken from Poole's " Descriptive Catalogue.'' nor have I 
thought it worth while to go farther. The Kershaw district apparently 
also remonstrated against the Woolens' Bill of 1827, the report speak- 
ing of " the undying cupidity " of the manufacturers, who had had so 
many bills in their favor in the past and now wanted more (Pamphlet in 
Gilpin Collection in The Historical Society of Pennsylvania). In two of 
the instances cited from Poole, the petitions merely call for a " revision 
of the tariff"; but it may probably be safely assumed that the revision 
they wanted was what modern days have called a " downward " one. In 
one instance, in 1824, a meeting of " citizens " favored the bill then be- 
fore Congress. 

61 Pamphlet in Charleston Library Society. 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 371 

after referring to the earlier proceedings, beginning in 1820: 

There is not a district in the whole State, which has not, within 
the last ten years, over and over again forwarded similar me- 
morials to Congress, until the very name of petitions against the 
Tariff became hateful to the ears of the majority, who would 
not consent to read them, nor hardly suffer them to be printed. 

All these proceedings were of course closely watched by 
Calhoun, who had on May 4th, when the " Bill of Abomina- 
tions " was still pending in the Senate, written to his absent 
brother-in-law of the deep business depression in the South, 
adding that the tariff system " must if persisted in reduce us 
to poverty, or compel us to an entire change of industry. You 
can form no idea how much it has alienated that part of the 
country." To Monroe, too, in a guarded letter of July 10, 
he wrote of the embarrassment and excitement caused by the 
tariff in the Southern States : 

. . . Which they almost unanimously attribute to the high 
duties. It is not surprizing, that under this impression, they 
should exhibit some excess of feelings, but I feel confident, that 
the attachment to the Union remains unshaken with the great 
body of our citizens. Yet it cannot be disguised, that the sys- 
tem pushed to the present extreme, acts most unequally in its 
pressure on the several parts, which has of necessity a most per- 
nicious tendency on the feelings of the oppressed portions. . . . 
One thing seems to me certain, that the system is getting wrong 
and if a speedy and effective remedy be not applied a shock at 
no long interval may be expected. 8 - 

B2 Calhoun wrote Monroe again on the same subject a few months later 
(December 29), but Monroe's answers were both far from sympathetic. 
He deeply regretted the Southern proceedings, thinking them fraught with 
great dangers to the Union and likely to lead to partial conf I iracies, con- 
flicts and the overthrow of our system of government. The Southern 
States were, in his opinion, especially interested in the preservation of 
the Union, and would otherwise be certain to suffer frightful calamities 
from insurrections of the slaves. He at the same time urged Calhoun 
to visit him, supposing these differences had deterred him, but begged 
him to be assured that they had produced no effect on his mind, in rela- 
tion to a visit. "Writings of James Monroe," Vol. VII, pp. 175-77. 187- 
89. Calhoun's letter to Monroe of December 29, 182^, seems to be lost, 
but Monroe's answer to it is to be found in the latter's " Writings," as 
above; and a foot-note there refers shortly to the contents of Calhoun's 
letter. 



372 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

On July i, too, he had written, from Pendleton, to Duff 
Green, editor of the U. S. Telegraph™ of Washington (his 
organ) that the country 

... Is perfectly sound on the great question. I do not believe 
in this state there is one administration man in fifty. The 
unanimity is so great, as to allay all excitement on the presiden- 
tial question. There is another of which I can say the same 
thing. I mean the tariff. The excitement is deep and universal, 
but I trust and believe will be restrained within the bounds of 
moderation. In its tendency I consider it by far the most dan- 
gerous question that has ever sprung up under our system, and 
mainly because its operation is so unequal among the parts. . . . 

The great ground we have taken is — the great principle on 
which we stand is, that the tariff act is unconstitutional and must 
be repealed — that the rights of the Southern States have been 
destroyed and must be restored — ■ that the Union is in danger and 
must be saved. 

The statement often made that Calhoun was the sole origina- 
tor and creator of Nullification is far from being strictly true, 
and the prior pages have shown that for some years he was, 
on the contrary merely one small atom in the slow growth of 
the forces that led thereto, and, — even more, — that for a 
period he resisted the swelling tide of dissatisfaction. By the 
date we have now reached, however, and for some little time 
before, he was, beyond doubt a chief leader in the matter, and 
by the summer of 1828 we shall find him advocating State 
Interposition or Veto and formulating the method by which 
that remedy, — pointed out in outline more than once in the 
past by others, — was to be carried out in practice in all its 
details. 

It was easy enough to use the word " nullify," and in sev- 
eral parts of the country particular laws had been denied 
obedience and their enforcement prevented in past years, but 
the tariff laws, carried out as they were in all particulars by 

03 This letter of Calhoun's is printed in Niles's " Register," Vol. XXXV 
(Septemher 20, 1828), p. 61. The " U. S. Telegraph" was the successor 
or continuation of the " City Gazette," once Crawford's organ, and took 
its name in 1826. J. Q. Adams's " Memoirs." Vol. VIT, p. 180. That it 
was Calhoun's organ, at least in 1830, see ibid., Vol. VIII, p. 209. 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 373 

Federal officers within the State, called for some new ma- 
chinery, in order physically to accomplish their setting aside. In 
this particular, Calhoun was evidently the one man who in the 
main and almost entirely devised the modus operandi. He 
it was, too, who in the last stages, — from 1828 to the end, 
with the exception of a time when it will be seen that he did 
not go as fast as some of the hot-bloods wanted, — led South 
Carolina into and through the Nullification contest. 

About the date of the Act of 1828 and for some time after 
it, he was evidently very active in the matter, and the public 
was freely allowed to know that such was the case. His re- 
cently quoted letter to Duff Green was of course not published, 
• — as it was soon after it had been written — without his 
consent; and at a dinner given to him at Pendleton on July 
4th, one of the regular toasts read : 

The Congress of '76 — they taught the world how oppression 
could be successfully resisted, may the lesson teach rulers that 
their only safety is in justice and moderation. 64 

He spent the summer of 1828 at his residence, Fort Hill 
in Pendleton, and it will be best to let him tell the story of 
what occurred there as well as give us his idea of the times. 
The famous Exposition took its origin at about this date. He 
writes in his " Autobiography " : G3 

The entire South was justly indignant at the passage of so un- 
just and oppressive a measure, especially under the circumstances 
which attended it, and the question universally asked was, What 
is to be done? On his return home this question was often and 
emphatically asked him. He was not the man to evade it. He 
frankly replied that there was no hope from Congress; that in 
both houses there were fixed majorities in favour of the sys- 
tem, and that there was no hope of any speedy change for the 
better; but, on the contrary, things must grow worse, if no effi- 
cient remedy should be applied. He said that he could see but 
two possible remedies within the limits of the Constitution ; one, 

fl * Charleston " Courier " of July 18, 1828. Calhoun said in the Senate 
on February 15, 16, 1833: "The doctrine which I now sustain, under the 
present difficulties, I openly avowed and maintained immediately after 
the act of 1828." Speech on Force Bill, in " Works," Vol. II, p. 217. 

66 Pp. 35. 36. 



374 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the election of General Jackson, who, by bringing to bear sys- 
tematically and steadily the patronage which the protective sys- 
tem placed in his hands, might reduce the duties down to the 
revenue standard ; and the other, State interposition or Veto, the 
high remedy pointed out in the Virginia and Kentucky resolu- 
tions as the proper one, after all others had failed, against op- 
pressive and dangerous acts of the general government, in pal- 
pable violation of the Constitution. He gave it as his opinion 
that there was no hope from the judiciary, and, as the act stood, 
the constitutional question could not be brought before the courts, 
the majority having refused to amend the title of the bill so as 
to make it appear on the face of it that the duties were laid 
for protection and not for revenue, expressly with the view of 
preventing the courts from taking jurisdiction, and deciding on 
its constitutionality. He also stated that, although he regarded 
General Jackson's election as certain, yet he was constrained to 
say that the circumstances under which the act passed, and the 
part which many of his influential supporters took in its passage, 
made it doubtful whether the hopes entertained from his elec- 
tion would, as it regarded the protective system, be realized, and 
expressed his belief that South Carolina would in the end be 
obliged to resort to its ultimate constitutional remedy by state 
interposition, and the ruinous consequences which must inevi- 
tably result from the act to itself, to the South, and finally to the 
whole Union. 

Many of the leading citizens of the state visited Mr. Calhoun at 
his residence, near the mountains in South Carolina, during the 
summer and autumn after his return from Washington, with all 
of whom he conversed freely, and expressed the same sentiments. 
But while he stated his conviction of the necessity of preparing 
in time for the worst, he always advised that there should be no 
precipitation, nor anything done to endanger the election of Gen- 
eral Jackson, nor, indeed, afterward, till it was ascertained 
whether his administration would correct the evil before the pub- 
lic debt was finally discharged. He fixed on that as the period 
for invoking the high authority of the state, as one of the 
sovereign parties to the constitutional compact, to arrest the evil, 
not only because he thought that ample time ought to be allowed 
to see if anything would be done, but because he believed that so 
long as the money, however unjustly and unconstitutionally ex- 
torted from the people by the act of '28, was applied to the pay- 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 375 

ment of the debt, it should be borne. But he thought, if the op- 
eration of the act should not then be arrested promptly, the vast 
surplus revenue which it would afterward pour into the treas- 
ury would be converted into the means of perpetuating it, and 
fixing the system on the country permanently and beyond the 
reach of any constitutional remedy. 

He was the more deeply impressed with the danger from what 
had already occurred. A leading advocate of the measure in 
the Senate, Mr. Dickerson, of New Jersey, the chairman of the 
Committee on Manufactures, and since Secretary of the Navy, 
had already moved in anticipation of the payment of the debt, 
and with the view of strengthening the protective system, that 
five millions of dollars should annually be taken from the treasury 
and divided among the states. Such a proposition could not fail 
to arouse the attention and apprehension of one so sagacious and 
vigilant as Mr. Calhoun. He saw at once the full extent of the 
danger. No measure could be devised more insidious, corrupt- 
ing, or better calculated to effect the object contemplated. . . . 

So deep was his conviction of the danger, that when he was 
requested by one of the members elected to the Legislature of 
South Carolina, with whom he had conversed freely when on a 
visit to him, and who expected to be on the Committee of Fed- 
eral Relations, to give him his views on the subject, he did not 
hesitate to draw them up in the shape of a report, in which he 
fully expressed himself as to the disease, the danger, and the 
remedy; and, regardless of popularity, he gave him authority 
to state who was its author, should he think it would be of any 
service. The paper was reported by the committee with some, 
though not material alterations. Five thousand copies were or- 
dered by the Legislature to be printed, under the title of " The 
South Carolina Exposition and Protest on the subject of the 
Tariff." 

It seems that William C. Preston 60 was the member of the 
Legislature, at whose instance, — either during a visit in the 

«° Preston is generally stated to be the person in question. See, e.g.. 
Hunt's "Calhoun," p. 71. Jenkins's "Life" does not name any one, and 
I have found no evidence on the point, unless that Preston's resolutions, 
offered at the coining session of the Legislature, and mentioned in 
the text shortly infra, perhaps bear evidence of the influence of Calhoun's 
views. They speak, e.g., of the reserved rights of the States, and of the 
States having the right " acting in their high sovereign capacity to inter- 
pose and arrest the usurpation." 



376 LIFE OF JOHN C CALHOUN 

summer or at a later period, — Calhoun drafted the South Car- 
olina Exposition. The Governor had not, — though more 
than once requested so to do, — called the Legislature together 
in special session; and when it met in November, while his 
message spoke of the tariff law of 1828 as a palpable violation 
of the Constitution which he wanted resisted by every means 
afforded by the Constitution and law of the land, yet his course 
was apparently not at all satisfactory to the would-be Nullifi- 
ers. He urged, for instance, that " no plan be adopted which 
will separate the interests of this State from those of the other 
suffering States." This was by no means the programme or, 
in modern parlance, " slate," of the leaders. 

Early in the session, a number of resolutions 67 against the 
tariff and of various degrees of heat were submitted in the 
House by Preston and others. A special committee of seven, 
— consisting of James Gregg, D. L. Wardlaw, Hugh S. Le- 
gare, Arthur P. Hayne, Wm. C. Preston, William Elliott, and 
R. Barnwell Smith, — was then appointed, 68 and from them on 
December 18 Gregg reported, with some minor changes, Cal- 
houn's " Exposition," which had presumably been given to 
the Committee by Preston. A form of " Protest," by the 
State was added, with eight reasons therefor; but it is not 
clear whether the " Protest " and reasons were Calhoun's or 
the committee's. 69 

In the Senate, also, resolutions upon the subject were pre- 
sented by J. S. Deas, Black, and Wilson; and after their 
consideration in committee of the whole, a resolution was 

67 The resolutions are reproduced by Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., in the " Pub- 
lications of the Southern History Association," Vol. Ill (1899), pp. 212- 
20. See also Niles's "Register," Vol. XXXV, pp. 304-10. 

es " Calhoun's Works," Vol. VI, p. I. Niles's " Register," Vol. XXXV, 

P- 307. 

«o "Calhoun's Works," Vol. VI, pp. 57-59- Niles's "Register," Vol. 
XXXV, p. 309, contains a letter of December 18, from Columbia, say- 
ing that the report had been presented that morning, and Niles adds that 
it was a very able paper but feared it was too long to be read. To the 
same effect is the comment of the Charleston " Mercury " of December 
22, 1828, while the unfavorable " Courier " of the same date merely re- 
produces from the " Southern Patriot " the fact that on the 18th the 
special committee made " an elaborate report to the House — the read- 
ing whereof took two hours." Such was the obscure birth of the 
" Exposition." 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 377 

adopted by 34 to 6, to the effect that the protective tariff was 
" unconstitutional and should be resisted and the other States 
be invited to co-operate." This was then amended that it 
should be sent to the several States, and finally a Committee 
of 9 was appointed to draft such a declaration as should clearly 
elucidate the principles of South Carolina upon the subject. 
Perhaps we may suspect that here is an expression of the un- 
willingness of members to-endorse Calhoun's Exposition. The 
Committee of 9 reported in a few days (December 19), and 
apparently 70 its report consisted of those resolutions of the 
Senate, which were in the end approved by both houses. 

The two branches disagreed, however, at first, each adher- 
ing to its own measure and refusing to agree to that suggested 
by the other, and there seemed much likelihood of an adjourn- 
ment without any action upon the subject. December 20 was 
a very busy day; a second session was held in the evening, 
and various messages were exchanged between the two houses. 
The Senate at one time voted by 21 to 10 to reject the House 
" Protest," and the subject was perhaps complicated by a dis- 
agreement on the " Bill for Supplies." This latter was first 
gotten out of the way, and then at a late hour 71 on Saturday 
night, — December 20, — a committee of conference upon the 
tariff matter was appointed by both houses. The Committee 
reported recommending the adoption of the " Protest," — 
which had originated in the House and was probably Cal- 
houn's, — and that the " Protest " should be entered on the 
Journals of Congress; and it also recommended the adoption 
of resolutions, which were probably those already referred to, 
which had been reported to the Senate on December 19, from 
the committee of 9. Both houses agreed to this report, and 
the session at length ended. 72 

70 The report is not transcribed in the Journal, but it was ordered 
printed and made a part of the special orders upon the general subject, 
which came up at a very late hour of the session. 

71 At about 11 :30, according to the "Courier" of December 23. 

72 The " Courier " of the 23rd says the adjournment was at about 1 130 
a.m. Sunday. The MS. Journal of the House contains no statement 
that the report of the conference Committee was approved, but perhaps 
such omissions could be found in other instances and the printed laws 
and other records show the fact sufficiently. I have gone over the matter 



378 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

The resolutions 73 of the Senate, thus approved by both 
branches, recited that the opinion of the Legislature, as ex- 
pressed in the years 1825 and 1827, was unchanged and that 
it was " restrained from the assertion of the sovereign rights 
of the state by the hope that the magnanimity and justice of 
the good people of the Union will effect the abandonment of a 
system, partial in its nature, unjust in its operation and not 
within the powers delegated to Congress." Another clause di- 
rected that copies of this resolution, together with those of 
1825 and 1827, be sent to the several States. 

The " Protest," — the other declaration upon the general sub- 
ject approved by both Houses, — was presented in the U. S. 
Senate on February 10, 1829, by William Smith, the State's 
senior senator. It read: " The Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives of South Carolina now met and sitting in General 
Assembly ... do, in the name and on behalf of the good 
people of the said Commonwealth, solemnly protest against the 
system of protecting duties lately adopted by the Federal Gov- 
ernment," giving eight reasons, which need not be quoted 
here; and the right was claimed, on behalf of the State, to 
enter upon the Journals of the Senate, " their protest against 
it as unconstitutional, oppressive, and unjust." 74 

Politics make strange bedfellows, and the changes of the 
complicated game are infinite. How interesting it would be 
and how curious to know the language that the pugnacious and 
bitter Smith indulged in among his intimates in regard to 
Calhoun, now that the kaleidoscope of human events found 
him offering State Rights papers drawn by his arch-enemy 
whom he knew to be the author of the " Exposition," which 
went much further than Smith had probably ever gone. Inter- 
esting indeed ; but hardly edifying! 

It has been said that the resolutions in regard to the tariff 
were sent to the several States, and we shall find that a few 

in the MS. Journals of the House and Senate, and my account is based 
on them. See, also, Niles's "Register," Vol. XXXV, pp. 307-10; and 
the Charleston " Mercury " and " Courier," both of December 23. 

« Laws of South Carolina, 1828, pp. 17-19- „ ., , „ r , _ 

** Congressional Debates, V. (1828-29), 52-58. " Calhoun s Works, 
Vol. VI, pp. 57-59- 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 379 

favorable replies were at first received, though in a short time 
South Carolina was destined to stand quite alone and, as she 
doubtless thought, deserted. Indeed, Calhoun emphasized, in 
1833, the fact that petitions, remonstrances, and protests 
against the protective system came in from Virginia and all 
the Southern States until 1828, " when Carolina, for the first 
time, changed the character of her resistance, by holding up 
her reserved rights as the shield of her defense against further 
encroachment." 75 And there, I think, we must find the real 
cause of the apparent desertion : The Southern States were 
all quite enough aroused to denounce the tariff and threaten 
State action against it, so long as the question remained some- 
what doctrinaire and they were not led to the brink of a 
serious and possibly armed clash with the Federal Govern- 
ment, but they drew back at once at the perils of disunion 
plainly visible in the latter course. 

This was much what had happened in the past as to some 
of the Fathers of events in 1798-99. Madison and his as- 
sociates of that period surely meant 76 (if they had any defi- 
nite meaning) that the individual States could rightfully pre- 
vent the enforcement within their respective limits of a Fed- 
eral law they deemed clearly beyond the powers conferred, but 
the question remained then academic, and did not approach an 

75 Speech on Force Bill in "Works," Vol. II, p. 241. He also wrote 
in his "Autobiography," p. 38: "He [himself] and the state now stood 
alone. . . . They were deserted by all the Southern States, though most of 
them had adopted the strongest resolutions, declaring the tariff of '28 
to be oppressive, unjust, unequal, and unconstitutional, and pledging 
themselves in the most positive manner to oppose it." 

76 It is impossible to argue here at any length the meaning of the 
famous resolutions of 1708-99, but to me it seems absolutely plain. There 
is no answer to the perfectly plain language used. Chancellor Harper, 
in his speech at Columbia on September 20, 1830 ("The Remedy by State 
Interposition, or Nullification, Explained." Pamphlet in Library of Uni- 
versity of South Carolina and in Library Co. of Philadelphia, pp. 16-18), 
spoke of the absurdity of the efforts then making to explain the resolu- 
tions otherwise and went on to ask : " How did the Legislatures of Con- 
necticut, Massachusetts and others, who made counter resolutions under- 
stand them? Was it then thought there was anything ambiguous in his 
words, or was the interpretation then put upon them, even disavowed?" 
See also F. M. Anderson's " Contemporary Opinion of the Virginia and 
Kentucky Resolutions" ("American Historical Review," Vol. V (1808- 
iooo), pp. 45-63, 225-52), and Ames's "State Documents on Federal Re- 
lations," pp. 16-26. 



380 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

actual clash of authority. When, more than thirty years later, 
a concrete instance came to a head and the perils of revolu- 
tionary conflict presented themselves to Madison's declining 
years, the practical instance, the pregnant horrors of the ac- 
tual condition, so different from the rather abstract theory 
and mere threats of 1799, appalled him, and he denied that he 
had ever intended to assert what his followers of 1832 found 
plainly written in his language of sturdy manhood. But he 
never did — he could not — give any satisfactory explana- 
tion of his writings of 1799 other than that which Calhoun and 
the Nullifiers drew from them. 

All men are largely opportunists, and the truth is that in 
the earlier instance, swept on by the desire to attain a particu- 
lar and highly important end, Madison and his associates had 
allowed their abstract ideas to run away with them a little and 
had developed a theory of our government which they would 
then have maintained, and probably did often say in con- 
versation was meant literally ; but, when the grievous wrongs, 
— at the time the chief issue in public affairs, — had later be- 
come mere history and their blood had cooled, they soon came 
then have maintained, and probably did often say in con- 
tention. It too plainly tended to annihilate all real govern- 
ment. 

Precisely the same was the case about 1830 with the South- 
ern States in general. In reply to the earlier South Carolina 
Resolutions of 1827, Georgia had answered in December, 1828, 
by expressing her concurrence " with the legislature of the 
State of South Carolina, in the Resolutions adopted at their 
December session in 1827, in relation to the powers of the 
General Government and state rights." 77 The Committee's 
report, which was adopted, was to the effect that protective 

77 I cite from the copy transmitted to South Carolina, printed in her 
Laws for 1829, pp. 70-81 ; but see, also, Georgia Laws, 1828, pp. 174-77- 
A remonstrance from Georgia addressed to the States in favor of the 
tariff, dated December 19, 1828, threatens nullification in some form, for 
it says : " if the unconstitutional measures are persevered in . . . We 
must as we did under British domination, seek an effectual remedy." 
South Carolina Laws, 1829. pp. 87-00. See, also, on this subject " Georgia 
and State Rights," by U. B. Phillips, in " Annual Reports of American 
Historical Association" (1901), Vol. II, pp. 117, uB, 120, 121. 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 381 

tariff laws were unconstitutional and that the States had " the 
unquestionable right in case of any infraction of the general 
compact ... to complain, remonstrate, and even to refuse 
obedience to any measure of the General Government mani- 
festly against, and in violation of the constitution; and in 
short to seek redress of their wrongs by all the means right- 
fully exercised by a sovereign and independent Government." 
Virginia was perhaps equally explicit at a slightly later date, 
and resolved in February, 1829: 

That the Constitution of the United States, being a Federative 
Compact between sovereign States, in construing which no com- 
mon arbiter is known, each State has the right to construe the 
compact for herself, but that each State, in so doing, " should be 
guided ... by a sense of forbearance and respect for the opinion 
of the other States, and by community of attachment to the Union, 
so far as the same may be consistent with self-preservation. . . ." 

The protective tariff laws were in her opinion unconstitu- 
tional. 78 

Alabama, too, in 1829 sent to Congress "a solemn protest 
against the tariff act of 1828 as unconstitutional, unequal, un- 
just and oppressive in its operation," but did not take up Nulli- 
fication. These very resolutions, indeed, expressed the opin- 
ion that " open and unqualified resistance should be the last and 
desperate alternative between submission on the one hand and 
the liberty of the people on the other." 79 

Even Ohio concurred in part and answered the South Caro- 
lina resolutions of 1827 in February, 1828, by resolving that 
" to the general proposition contained in the first resolution 
[that the Constitution is ' a compact between the people of the 
different States with each other as separate independent sover- 
eignties '] abstracted from definite questions of constitutional 

78 South Carolina Laws, 1829, pp. 71-79 : see also Ames's " State Docu- 
ments on Federal Relations." pp. 156, 157. 

79 Poole's " Descriptive Catalogue," etc., p. 210. Laws of Alabama, 
1828, pp. 101, 102. The Alabama Legislature had also protested at tbe 
prior session against the Woolens Bill and the protective tariff in general, 
Laws 1827, pp. 160-72 : Poole, p. 196, Ames's " State Documents," &c, pp. 
150, 151. North Carolina, too, seems to have protested in 1827-28, Poole, 
p. 195, Ames's " State Documents," &c, pp. 148. 149- I have not been able 
to find this protest or remonstrance in the North Carolina Laws. 



382 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

right or power this general assembly perceive no grounds of 
objection,"' but expressed their solemn dissent from the doc- 
trines that protective tariff laws and internal improvements 
were unconstitutional. 80 But here the favorable answers 
ended and resolutions of an opposite tenor were passed in at 
least two Southern States, 81 and when South Carolina acted 
upon her theories in 1832, she was universally frowned upon. 

Finally, in regard to the famous " Exposition " of Calhoun, 
as has been seen, it was not adopted by either branch of the 
South Carolina Legislature, but 5000 copies were ordered 
printed by the House. 82 On the title page, this publication was 
called : " Exposition and Protest reported by the Special Com- 
mittee of the House of Representatives: read and ordered to 
be printed December 19, 1828." Printed thus by authority 
and widely circulated as it was, as well as offering, in Cal- 
houn's crystal-like logic, by far the most complete argument 
to be found in favor of South Carolina's contentions, we need 
not wonder that it came ere long to be known as " The South 
Carolina Exposition." Calhoun himself so wrote of it, 83 and 
was perhaps not unwilling to magnify his own offspring. 
Many writers have even supposed that it was formally adopted 
by the Legislature. As a matter of fact, it was never formally 
approved by any agency of the State government having 
higher authority than a Special Committee of one branch of 
the Legislature,' and it was said that members thought it con- 
tained tenets on which they ought not to be committed. 84 
The Exposition 83 had to cover a wide field of argument. 

8° 4xts of Local Nature, First Session, Twenty-Sixth General As- 
sembly (Ohio), Vol. XXVI, p. 187. 

" Kentucky and Louisiana. Ames's " State Documents on Federal Rela- 
tions," pp. 158-163. A Democratic State Convention of Mississippi also 
unanimously resolved against the existence of the alleged right of nulhhca- 
tion and secession but this was apparently in 1834. John Vv .Garner s I he 
First Struggle over Secession in Mississippi " in " Publications of Missis- 
sippi Historical Society," Vol. IV, pp. go, 91. 

82 MSS. Journal of the House, under date of December 19. 

83 " Autobiography," p. 36. 

** Cooper =0 writes in his editorial notes to the statutes at Large, 
Vol I p 273 He also writes there that the Exposition " is inserted as 
being a document of great historial interest. But although the report 
was read and ordered to be printed, it was not adopted by the two 

Houses." . .. — 

""Calhoun's Works," Vol. VI, pp. 2-57, contains the Exposition as 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 383 

Taking up the tariff first, it began by admitting the general 
proposition that the consumers pay an impost, but contended 
that where a tariff exists and " furnishes the means [to some] 
of indemnifying themselves, ... no proposition can be more 
fallacious than that the consumers pay." This was argued 
at length, and here may probably be found the mould in which 
was cast McDuffte's famous 40-bale theory. 86 The reader 
must decide for himself as to its validity. 87 Later pages went 
into the wide divergence of interests in the two sections of 
the country, the dangers of irresponsible power, and soon 
branched off to the question as to the nature of our system 
with its two governmental agencies. The distinction between 
government and sovereignty was carefully drawn, — the former 
divided by the Constitution in our case between the States and 
the Federal Government, while the latter was and always had 
been inherent in the people of the States respectively. No 
means had been provided in words, it said, to guard the 
reserved rights of the States, while the right of appeal to the 
U. S. Supreme Court, under the Twenty-Fifth Section of the 
Judiciary Act of 1789, was provided to protect the rights vested 
in the General Government from violation by the State authori- 
ties. 

But this judicial power had no application to the rights of the 
parties to the compact, and was confined to questions of the 
authority of different departments, as Madison had so well 

Calhoun drew it. The printed pamphlet contains it, as reported to the 
Legislature. R. B. Rhett wrote Cralle in 1854 that it " was greatly al- 
tered by the committee, who reported it to the Legislature, of which 1 
was one. Mr. Calhoun had nothing to do with these alterations and I 
know disapproved of them." R. B. Rhett on the " Biography of Calhoun," 
1854, by Gaillard Hunt in "American Historical Review" (1907-08), 
Vol. XIII, pp. 310-312. 

86 See, also, the Report prepared by Calhoun for the Committee on 
Federal Relations of the Legislature, November Session, 1831 ; " Works," 
Vol. VI, p. 115. 

87 Few or none will doubt the soundness of one of their contentions, 
which probably contains the gist of their arguments upon this point. 
Calhoun wrote Micah Sterling on September 1, 1828, that he was not sur- 
prised at the views held in the North in regard to the excitement over 
the tariff in the South, and then explained that they could not recoup 
themselves from the consumer's pocket, as the North could do. Our 
market is a foreign one, and we can receive no protection in it. Letter 
in the collection of John Gribbel, Esq., of Philadelphia. 



384 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

shown in his Report of 1799. To argue that the Federal au- 
thorities, judicial or any other, could finally decide on the ex- 
tent of the powers conferred upon the Union, was not to divide 
the powers but to make our Federal Government one consoli- 
dated one. How, then, w!ere the States to be protected ? The 
answer is that their right of interposing to protect their pow- 
ers from violation by the Federal authorities is an essen- 
tial attribute of sovereignty, implied, it is true, but not for 
that reason wanting in certainty any more than is the equally 
implied power of the courts to hold laws unconstitutional. 
Hamilton and Madison were quoted to this point. 

Finally, the question was discussed as to how to apply the 
proposed remedy of State veto. The Legislature probably had 
the power to act in the matter, but a Convention was best, 
because free from all doubt. It would, beyond question, rep- 
resent the highest sovereignty in the State, and on it would 
rest the duty of deciding whether the tariff laws were so 
palpable a violation of the Constitution as to justify the inter- 
position of the State. An amendment to the Federal Consti- 
tution affirming the disputed power could then, it was ad- 
mitted, in turn overrule the action of the State and make the 
disputed exercise of power constitutional. That the facts 
justified interposition was clear; but delay was recommended 
in the hope that the obnoxious laws might be repealed. It 
was absurd to anticipate danger of armed conflict under a 
government of laws, where one of the sovereign parties should 
exercise a power she conscientiously believed to belong to her. 

From this time on, the somewhat nebulous historical doc- 
trine of Nullification, condensed at length into definite form, 
took a distinct place in the minds of many in the theory of our 
system. Millions disbelieved in it then, and more and more 
came in time to reject and ridicule it, but its equation and 
orbit, if the expression may be allowed, had now been calcu- 
lated and were to be found, written out in plain terms, by any 
seeker. This elucidation and description were beyond doubt 
due to Calhoun. He it was, whose analytical mind had here 
brought order out of chaos. 

It is true that James Hamilton, Jr., had antedated Calhoun 



ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION 385 

by some two months in proclaiming the doctrine publicly. 
He had set it forth quite fully and with remarkable accuracy 
in his Walterborough speech S8 of October 21, 1828, and 
seems to have been the very first to do so, but it can hardly 
be doubted that he had derived his knowledge from Calhoun, 
probably during a visit to Fort Hill. The later relations of 
the two men to the subject and to each other seem to demon- 
strate this. 

It is worthy of note, too, that, probably at the very same time 
when Calhoun was writing the Exposition, the doctrine of 
Nullification was to some extent set forth by " Sidney " in a se- 
ries of letters to the Charleston Mercury. 89 Who the author 
was is unknown, nor is there any actual knowledge as to where 
he derived his information. Possibly, as has been suggested, 90 
he may have been another of those who visited Calhoun at 
Fort Hill during the time when Calhoun was at home between 
sessions. The latter had reached Pendleton on the 29th of 
May. 91 

" Sidney " did well enough in treating some phases of 
Nullification but broke down hopelessly on other points. He 
wanted their Legislature to declare the tariff laws void and 
that merchants should refuse to pay duties. They were then 
to sue in the State Courts, presumably to recover their goods, 
and on the trial of the case proof was apparently to be offered 
that the Acts were designed for protection. " For the purpose 
of discovering what were the objects the Bill intended accom- 
plishing," wrote this would-be leader, distinctly referring to the 
method in which his proposed case was to be tried. " we must 
look to the petitioners whom it intended to benefit, and the 
speeches of those who passed it." If he had taken inspira- 
tion from Calhoun, he had learned his lesson badly, and he 
would have been a sadly unsafe leader. Calhoun was perhaps 
quite wrong in his chief contention, but there were no such 
flaws as this in the suit of armor he had forged. 

88 Pamphlet in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. O'Xcall tells US 
that he had "often heard Chancellor Harper claim [Nullification] to be 
his own progeny." " Bench and Bar," etc., Vol. II, p. 286. 

89 Issues of July 3, 4, 8, 1828, and possibly of other dates. 

90 Prof. Houston in his " Study of Nullification," p. 76. 

91 Charleston " Courier " of June g, 1828. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE WIDENING BREACH 

Presidential Campaign of 1828-29 — Jackson-Calhoun 
Ticket Chosen — The President's Cabinet — Calhoun's Ri- 
valry with Van Buren — The Eaton Affair — Growing Tension 
with Jackson — Crawford — Jackson's Quarrel with Calhoun. 

The events that have been under discussion in the last chap- 
ter, occurred at a time when another question, always of vital 
moment in American politics, was growing very acute. A 
Presidential election was near at hand, and the difficulties of the 
South, especially of the leaders in South Carolina, where greatly 
enhanced by the necessity of declaring for some one of the 
candidates. To them, other issues were of far more impor- 
tance than was the question of who should be President, nor 
was there much to indicate who was the candidate most likely 
to advance their interests. 

As early as December, 1826, however, before the tariff 
issue had come to dwarf all others, a caucus of the South Caro- 
lina Legislature had voted almost unanimously for Jackson, 1 
and here was of course an indication. Possibly, this was 
partly the reason why, during the summer after the passage of 
the Tariff Act of 1828, when Calhoun was consulted as to 
the best course for the State to follow, he urged that they 
should support Jackson. It was a choice of evils, he added, 
for numbers of the general's supporters Were tariff men, but 
he was a Southerner and slave-owner, not at all an out-spoken 
tariff man, and he had behind him a vast popularity. At the 
same time, Calhoun expressed great doubts, founded on the 
course taken by many of Jackson's supporters in the pas- 
sage of the Act of 1828, whether he would bring them any 

1 Charleston " Mercury," December 26, 1828, cited in Houston's " Nulli- 
fication," p. 67. 

386 



THE WIDENING BREACH 387 

relief and inclined to the belief that they would in the end 
be compelled to resort to State interposition. 2 

South Carolina accordingly supported the ticket of Jackson 
and Calhoun, and on July 1st the latter wrote that "the 
unanimity is so great as to allay all excitement on the presi- 
dential question." 3 He was doubtless anxious to keep on 
good terms with the general and wrote him on July 10 4 about 
the effort (mentioned later) to embroil Monroe and himself 
with Jackson, saying in substance that the real difference be- 
tween them had turned on the construction of orders and that 
it was enough that the orders had been honestly issued and 
honestly executed. Turning next to the excitement in the 
South over the tariff, he thought it was not surprising that 
some excess of feeling existed ; but added that the hope that 
under Jackson " a better order of things will commence, in 
which an equal distribution of the burdens and benefits of 
government, economy, the payment of the public debt, and 
finally the removal of oppressive duties, will be primary objects 
of policy, is what mainly consoles this quarter of the Union." 

In due time the South Carolina Legislature appointed elec- 
tors in favor of the Jackson-Calhoun ticket and, as is well 
known, it was chosen by a large majority of the electoral 
vote, 178 to 83. A lull in politics doubtless at once then fol- 
lowed, while people were wondering what was in store for 
them under the new and quite untried powers about to assume 
the reins of office. 

Calhoun wrote from Washington on January 10, 1829, to 
a Southern relative : " We have a dead calm in politics, which 
will continue till after the arrival of the President elect." And 
then went on that, despite much idle speculation as to the new 
cabinet, it was a subject on which Jackson had presumably 
not made up his mind, "nor will he, if he acts prudently, till 
he has had an opportunity of seeing the whole ground. . . . 

2 Speech on bill to reduce the duties, "Works," Vol. Til, pp. 52, 53. 
Speech on Bill to repeal Force Act. "Works," Vol. II, pp. 394-396. 
"Autobiography," pp. 35-37, quoted ante, p. 388. 

3 Letter of July 1, 1828, to Duff Green, printed in Niles's "Register," 
Vol. XXXV, p. 61, and quoted ante, p. 372. 

4 Letter in Blair Collection of Jackson papers, Library of Congress, 



3 88 LIFE OF JOHX C. CALHOUX 

I am not altogether without hope, if Genl. Jackson takes a 
correct general view of his position, and places an able sound 
man at the head of the Treasury Department, but that some- 
thing like justice may be done to us." 

Jackson arrived in Washington on February nth. 3 and it 
was not long ere his cabinet was selected. Indeed, one mem- 
ber at least had probably been fixed upon ( subject to his 
acceptance) before that date. J. A. Hamilton 6 evidently 
thougfht this was the case as to Van Buren, and for Secretarv 
of War, also, the choice had apparently been already nar- 
rowed down to either Eaton or White, in order that the Presi- 
dent might " have in his cabinet one old friend on whom he 
could always rely." 

Some leading men were called to confer with Jackson upon 
the subject, but they found his mind already pretty well made 
up. James Hamilton. Jr., Hayne, Drayton, and McDuffie 
of South Carolina, and Archer of Virginia, all came by in- 
vitation on February i8th. and urged Langdon Cheves for the 
Treasury, but were told very positively that Ingham was to 
have that place, nor would Jackson listen to the suggestion 
they then made of Louis McLane of Delaware. They went 
off in a high state of wrath at finding that they had been asked 
more as a matter of form than with any real idea of con- 
ference. 7 It is noteworthy that these South Carolinians were 

5 J. Q. Adams's " Memoirs." Vol. VIII. p. 101. Niles's " Register." Vol. 
XXXV. pp. 401. 409. Bassett's "Jackson," Vol. II, p. 409. These authori- 
ties prove beyond doubt that the nth was the actual day of his arrival. 
It was that on which the electoral vote was counted. T. A. Hamilton 
says in his " Reminiscences," p. 89. that the arrival was on the 12th. while 
Parton ("Jackson." Vol. III. p. 321) fixes it as about the 9th or 10th; 
but, they are evidently in error. In the end of January, a story of Jack- 
son's death was circulating in Washington, and Webster wrote to Joseph 
Hopkinson on the 30th : " The rumour of General Jackson's death has 
subsided. My own private opinion, however, [word illegible] is. that 
he is very ill, and I have doubt whether he will ever reach this place." 
Letter in Hopkinson Collection in possession of Edward Hopkinson, 
Esq.. of Philadelphia. 

6 " Reminiscences." p. 89. J. A. Hamilton wrote Van Buren, as early 
as February 21. of " the cabinet as determined." and of Calhoun's con- 
sequent disappointment. " Calendar of Van Buren Papers." 1910. Library 
of Congres*;. p. 101. 

7 The' delightfully ebullient James Hamilton. Jr.. in writing an account 
of the interview, said : " I assure you. in the words of Sir Anthony Ab- 
solute, 'I am perfectly cool — damn cool — never half so cool in my 



THE WIDENING BREACH 389 

evidently not yet in unison with Calhoun, and were opposing 
the very candidate whom he wanted for the Treasury. They 
expressed also to Jackson their approval of the selection of 
Van Buren for the State Department, though no man could 
have been fixed upon more distasteful to the great Southern 
leader, with whom they were destined soon to be so closely 
associated. 8 

Calhoun, too, probably had an interview by invitation with 
the President-elect shortly after the latter's arrival in Washing- 
ton. According to J. A. Hamilton, on this occasion, Calhoun 
urged Tazewell of Virginia for the State Department, but 
Jackson intimated other intentions. Hamilton also expresses 
the belief that this was the last interview Calhoun had with 
Jackson in regard to the cabinet. 9 Hamilton's recollection 
and opinions were, however, not always accurate, and Cal- 
houn wrote 10 publicly only some two or three years later : 
" Jackson never consulted me as to the formation of his 
cabinet. ... As he did not consult me, I had too much self- 
respect ... to intrude my advice." Doubtless, the meeting 
did take place, and possibly something of a general nature 
was said by Calhoun, which Jackson and Hamilton interpreted 
as advocacy of Tazewell, who was from Virginia. That im- 
portant State was then for the first time left without a repre- 
sentative in the cabinet, and this was a doubtful party policy. 
There can be no doubt that Calhoun's friends were actively in 
favor of Tazewell. 

The same partisan and not very reliable J. A. Hamilton 
writes further that " Calhoun and his friends made a desper- 
ate effort to induce the President to employ such men in his 
cabinet as would give them the control of the Government. 
The game was" Tazewell, State; Ingham, Treasury; Berrien, 
Attorney General, and John McLean of Ohio, War. 11 How- 
ever much or little truth there may be in this statement of a 

life.'" Letter to Van Buren in Van Buren MSS., quoted in Bassett's 
"Jackson," Vol. II, p. 416. 

8 Ibid., pp. 412, 415. 

9 " Reminiscences," pp. 100, 101. 

*o Reply to Eaton, printed in " Works," Vol. VI, " Appendix, p. 443. 
11 " Reminiscences," p. 91. 



390 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

supporter of Van Buren, there is no doubt that Calhoun was 
at heart strongly opposed to the selection of Van Buren and 
Eaton, 12 and that his friends tried hard to prevent them both. 
Van Buren was, in Calhoun's opinion, largely responsible for 
the Act of 1828, and Eaton had voted in its favor in the Senate. 
The opposition to Eaton, so Parton writes, " the President 
considered very unkind," as Eaton was his personal friend; 
he thought, too, that Calhoun could have stopped it, though 
he had no proof that the latter was personally concerned. In 
the process of cabinet-making, if not sooner, it is thus very 
evident that feeling had begun to crop up between Jackson 
and Calhoun. 

Van Buren hesitated for a time to accept the office tendered 
him and was strongly advised against doing so by Louis Mc- 
Lane of Delaware. J. A. Hamilton, on the other hand, ad- 
vised him to accept, writing that Calhoun was certainly disap- 
pointed and " now hopes that Jackson may be thrown into 
his arms by your refusal." In a few days Van Buren signified 
his acceptance, thus reaching a conclusion that was destined to 
have a vast influence on his career and that of Calhoun. It 
seems that his friends much feared the latter's influence, but 
the result of the struggle was that the cabinet was decidedly 
a Van Buren one, and Calhoun had but two friends in it — 
Ingham and John McLean. The latter of these, moreover, 
resigned almost at once to accept an appointment to the Su- 
preme Bench and was replaced by W. T. Barry, who was 
not at all a Calhoun supporter. 13 

12 For Calhoun's opinion as to the appointment of Van Buren, see his 
speech on the Force Bill in "Works," Vol. II, p. 216; and Eaton's vote 
for the tariff bill was quite enough, " Works," Vol. Ill, pp. 52, 53- Dray- 
ton was urged for the War Office, but it is not clear in whose interest. 
Letter of J. A. Hamilton to Van Buren, February 19, 1829, in Calendar 
of Papers of Martin Van Buren, 1910, Library of Congress, p. 101. 
Drayton, it seems, was later offered the War Office, at the time of the 
break-up of the cabinet, John Quincy Adams's " Memoirs," Vol. IX, p. 182. 

"Bassett's "Jackson," Vol. II, pp. 410, 4". 417, 4*8, 419. J- ^-Ham- 
ilton ("Reminiscences," pp. 100, 101) thought the transfer of McLean 
to the Supreme Bench a stunning blow to Calhoun, and evidently was 
delighted at the move. On the selection of the cabinet in general, see 
J A. Hamilton's " Reminiscences," pp. 89-101 ; Parton's " Jackson," Vol. 
Ill, pp. 321-31 ; Bassett's " Jackson," Vol. II, pp. 408-19. The last named 
author has used very extensively the Jackson and Van Buren MSS. in 
the Library of Congress. 



THE WIDENING BREACH 391 

Thus Calhoun was far from likely to have much power 
under the new administration. With its leading member, 
Van Buren, his relations were already strained by prior con- 
tests, and the two men were now rivals not only in the struggle 
for influence with the new President but for the succession 
as well. Adams was told 14 on March 19, 1829, by a Senator 
that there was already great bitterness between their partisans, 
and Maxcy, while writing Calhoun in July that Jackson had 
satisfied him of his desire to be impartial between them, added 
that the fact of all the conspicuous appointments since that of 
Ingham going to Van Buren's friends made upon the public 
quite a different impression. A very bitter quarrel, too, had 
broken out at that time in regard to some printing patronage 
between Duff Green of the Telegraph and Ingham of the 
Treasury, which Maxcy had been trying without success to ap- 
pease. 15 

The Southerners were inspired with some hope by Jack- 
son's inaugural address, which favored " a strict and faithful 
economy " and on the burning issue of the tariff said that 
" the great interests of agriculture, commerce and manu- 
factures should be equally favored and that perhaps the only 
exception to this rule should consist in the peculiar encourage- 
ment of any products of either of them that may be found es- 
sential to our national independence." The very first mes- 
sage, however, dashed these hopes. Vague and noncommittal 
on the tariff, it was distinctly in favor of distributing the sur- 
plus revenue, — after payment of the debt, — among the States. 
This was, to the Southerners, a fatal policy, as it promised to 
perpetuate the tariff system, by furnishing a means of em- 
ploying the surplus. They had indeed, at Calhoun's advice, 
fixed on the extinction of the debt as the time until which they 
would wait, before deciding finally what course to pursue. 
The idea of distribution was not new, but had been advocated 
in the Senate at a prior session by Dickerson of New Jersey 

""Memoirs," Vol. VIII, p. 116. . _ , 

""Calhoun Correspondence," Maxcy's letters of June i and July 4, 
1829, pp. 810, 814. A Washington correspondent of the Charleston 
"Courier" wrote, on December 20th, of the divergence between the Van 
Buren and Calhoun interests. "Courier" of December 29, 1829. 



392 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

and had at once excited the apprehension of Calhoun. 16 
Once more, Southern hopes were aroused by the veto of 
the Maysville Road Bill, on May 27, 1830, during the first 
session of Congress under Jackson, for the South always felt 
that, if the expenditures were reduced, the temptation to main- 
tain the tariff would be lessened. Hayne, in his speech at the 
Charleston Dinner on July 4, 1830, spoke of the veto as being 
"to the Southern States the first dawning of returning 
hope " ; 17 but the roseate hue did not last long. Within a few 
months, Jackson's second message (December, 1830) spoke 
again most distinctly in favor of distributing the surplus reve- 
nue among the States, while a vague mist still enveloped the 
sentences on the tariff. It should be changed, he wrote; some 
of the rates were too high, and duties had been placed on 
goods for the manufacture of which the country was not ripe. 
Here was probably poultice for injured Southern supporters, 
but the chalice was poisoned for others by the distinct opinion 
added, — that the tariff laws were constitutional. 

Some efforts had been made at the prior session to change 
the tariff. After Mallary had reported on January 5, 1830, 
from the Committee on Manufactures that it was inexpedient 
to make any change, 18 McDuffie from the Ways and Means 
brought in a bill on February 5 to reduce the tariff. 19 He 
was unable, however, to get it considered, and it was almost 
at once laid on the table without discussion. All his proposals, 
moreover, to amend the bill, which was later reported from 
the Committee on Manufactures (mainly an administrative 
measure but containing some increases of rates), were re- 

10 " Autobiography," p. 35. Congressional Debates, Vol. Ill (1826-27), 
pp. 209-223. . 

17 Niles's " Register," Vol. XXXVIII, p. 379- Pr <> f - Bassett thinks 
("Jackson," Vol. II, p. 490) that the veto was a hard blow to Calhoun, 
and quotes from Van Buren's MS. autobiography a sentence seeming to 
take the same view ; but by this time Calhoun was probably no longer 
in favor of internal improvements, and his entirely private letter of 
Sept. 11, 1830, to Maxcy, when speaking of the Maysville Road Veto, 
seems to approve it and certainly does not suggest a regret at the defeat 
of internal improvements. See infra, pp. 417-419. 

" House Journal, First Session, Twenty-First Congress, p. 130. Poole s 
"Descriptive Catalogue," &c, p. 214. Charleston "Courier," January 12, 
1830. 

19 Congressional Debates, Vol. VI, Part 1, 1829-30, pp. 555, 556. 



THE WIDENING BREACH 393 

jected. At this stage, and before the final vote, he and the 
South Carolina members generally withdrew from the 
House. 20 This is a petulant mode of indicating feeling, which 
has rarely had much success, and the Charleston Courier said 
in this instance again that its effect was less than expected. 
The bill passed finally and became a law. 21 

Not long after Jackson's inauguration there had broken out 
a public quarrel of a character, which has happily been rare 
in our short history. Questions of female virtue have broken 
more than one cabinet in some parts of the world, but I think 
Mrs. Eaton stands much alone among us. Peggy O'Neil, 
later Mrs. Timberlake, and then the wife of Jackson's Secre- 
tary of War, John H. Eaton, did not attain the standard of 
reputation laid down as necessary for Caesar's wife, and the 
Washington dames of 1829-30 would have none of her. 
Jackson espoused the cause of his friend's wife with all the 
ardor of his Scotch-Irish nature and did his best to force her 
acceptance, but he met his match in the gentle sex, when he 
trespassed on a region they look upon as peculiarly their own. 
Mrs. Eaton was rarely received. The bachelor Van Buren 
was able to please the General in this particular to the top of 
his bent, but the married Calhoun was in another situation. 

Mrs. Smith wrote, 22 early the next winter: 

One woman has made sad havoc here; to be, or not to be, 
her friend is the test of Presidential favor. Mr. Van Buren 
sided with her and is consequently the right-hand man, the con- 
stant riding, walking and visiting companion [of the President]. 
. . . Mr. Calhoun, Ingham, his devoted friend, Branch and Ber- 
rien form one party, the President, Van Buren, General Eaton and 
Mr. Barry the other. . . . Meanwhile the lady who caused this 
division, is forced notwithstanding the support and favor of such 
high personages to withdraw from society. She is not re- 

20 The Charleston " Courier " of May 20, and the " Mercury " of June 
2, 1830. I do not find this fact stated in the other newspapers of the 
period over which I have looked, nor does it seem to he mentioned in 
the histories of the time. Drayton and Tucker were the only South 
Carolinians to vote on the final vote. Congressional Debates, Vol. VI, 
Part II (1829-30), p. 987. 

21 Stanwood's "Tariff Controversies," Vol. I, p. 364. 

22 Letter of January 26, 1830, to her sister. " First Forty Years of 
Washington Society," p. 310. 



394 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

ceived in any private parties, and since the 8th of January has with- 
drawn from public assemblies. At the ball given on that oc- 
casion, she was treated with such marked and universal neglect 
and indignity, that she will not expose herself again to such 
treatment. 

Calhoun became very much involved in this battle royal. 
It seems that General and Mrs. Eaton called at his house once 
in his absence and were of course received by Mrs. Calhoun, 
and the latter and her husband had later that day some con- 
versation about Mrs. Eaton and her relation to Washington 
society. The next morning, Mrs. Calhoun told her husband 
that she would not return the visit, as she considered herself 
a stranger in the capital, and that Mrs. Eaton should open her 
intercourse with ladies residing there. Calhoun approved her 
decision, though he foresaw the consequent difficulties to him- 
self. In a later public statement 23 detailing these facts, he 
said that Mrs. Calhoun had never called on Mrs. Eaton, and 
wrote of " the great victory that has been achieved, in favor 
of the morals of the country, by the high-minded independence 
and virtue of the ladies of Washington." The next winter 
(1830-31) Mrs. Calhoun did not come to the capital at all, 
and John Ouincy Adams says she was staying South so as 
to avoid the contamination of Mrs. Eaton. 24 

The divine wrath of Jackson over this matter had in it a 
tinge of opera boufre; but his irascible nature was much 
impressed and the contest contributed largely to the dissolu- 
tion of the cabinet a year later and beyond doubt helped to 

"Reply of Calhoun to Eaton, printed in "Works," Vol. VI, "Ap- 
pendix," pp. 435-445, and also reprinted from the Pendleton " Messenger," 
in Niles's "Register," Vol. XL, pp. 178-80. The letter was due to an as- 
sertion by Eaton in the public papers that Calhoun was at the bottom 
of the troubles in the cabinet and that he and Mrs. Calhoun had at first 
called on Mrs. Eaton and later refused to do so, actuated by political 
motives. Calhoun's letter is followed in Niles by one from Rev. F. S. 
Evans, saying that four days after Eaton's marriage, Calhoun's car- 
riage drove up to the door of Mr. O'Neil (Mrs. Eaton's father) and 
asked for Mr. and Mrs. Eaton and, they being absent, left the cards of 
Mr. & Mrs. Calhoun; but few will hesitate to accept Calhoun's word to 
the contrary, and his statement of the well known rule in Washington 
that Senators and their families always called on the Vice-President 
first seems conclusive. 

2* "Memoirs," Vol. VIII, p. 150. 



THE WIDENING BREACH 395 

prepare his mind for that poison in regard to Calhoun's past 
actions which was even then in process of concoction by the 
latter's enemies. 

Another highly important step in the political game of the 
day was the decision of Jackson, or rather of his friends, 
that he should run for a second term. His expressions had 
indicated that he would not do so; but before the end of De- 
cember, 1829, it began to be rumored 25 that he would again 
be a candidate and in the following March, Van Buren and 
Major Lewis were working actively in this direction and some 
formal nominations of the General were obtained. 

Lewis thought that he was the originator of this move and 
was apparently largely inspired thereto by dislike of Calhoun 
and the desire to defeat him. He wrote letters, about March, 
1830, to members of the Pennsylvania Legislature, requesting 
them to sign a form of letter to Jackson (which he enclosed) 
asking him to stand again, and urged the absolute necessity 
of Jackson's endorsement 26 

... at the next meeting of their Legislature as the most ef- 
fectual if not the only means of defeating the machinations of 
Mr. Calhoun and his friends, who were resolved on forcing Gen- 
eral Jackson from the presidential chair after one term. The 
peculiar position of the Vice President, it was believed, made 
this necessary. He was then serving out his second term, and 
as none of his predecessors had ever served more than 8 years, 
his friends thought it might be objected to and perhaps would be 
injurious to him, to be presented to the nation for a third term. 
... It would not do for him to retire to the shades of private 
life for 4 long years. He could not run for a third term, and 
they dare not run him in opposition to General Jackson. . . . 
The scheme worked admirably, and in a few months the hopes 
of Mr. Calhoun and his partisans were completely withered, and 
the idea of driving General Jackson from the field abandoned al- 
together. 

In such struggles as this, Calhoun was, in the writer's opin- 
ion, but a child in opposition to politicians of the mould of 

25 Charleston " Courier " of December 29, 1829. 

20 Letter to Parton, printed in "Life of Jackson," Vol. Ill, pp. 209-301. 



396 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Van Buren and Lewis. He could not play upon the mere 
passions of the multitude and had no comprehension of the 
burrowing schemes such men are forever indulging in to 
attain far-off as well as near-by designs. Despite his often 
marvelous power of forecasting the consequences of deep, un- 
derlying causes, there seem to be several instances in his 
career, — one conspicuous one now not far ahead, — in which 
he failed entirely to foresee results that were plain enough to 
them, and it may probably be added that he had no very full 
understanding of the nature of the ordinary man's mind in 
some of its workings. Nor must we forget that the little 
god of earth is after all the pawn by which the public man 
must attain his ends. 

In the instance we are now concerned with, Calhoun still 
thought, as late as May, 1830, that it was " perfectly un- 
certain, whether Genl. Jackson will offer again or not. Some 
who regard their own interest more than his just fame are 
urging him to offer." 27 And on March 30, at the very time 
when the steps looking to his own defeat were being launched 
with such success, he wrote to Gouverneur that the latter un- 
derstood fully 

. . . The game, which is playing in a certain quarter. ... It 
is, however, not calculated to do those engaged in it any service. 
I am surprised that one so artful as the author [doubtless mean- 
ing Van Buren] and who occupies so favorable a position for 
his operations, should so completely fail. His strength, which 
was never great, has been steadily declining all the session, and 
he may be now pronounced feeble. I see no cause to fear him, 
unless of enfeebling the administration by his devious course. 
... It is an object of ambition with us to carry the General 
through with glory. 

The writer then went on to add, with reference to the 
nominations to office pending in the Senate, that the accusation 
that delay had been due to his friends was utterly false, and 
expressed his gratification at Swartwout's confirmation. 28 

27 " Correspondence,'' p. 273. 

28 Ibid., pp. 271, 272, and Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 
Vol. Ill (1899), pp. 331, 332. This letter was dated March 30, the very 



THE WIDENING BREACH 397 

Probably these words reflect some still lingering effort to please 
Jackson, who was full of wrath at the slow confirmation of 
his many new appointments. It will ere long be seen how 
soon there was a rude awakening from the almost patroniz- 
ing desire to bring the General through with glory. 

The Hayne-Webster debate occurred during the latter half 
of January of this same year, — 1830. Calhoun had, of 
course, no direct part in the discussion, but has often been 
said 29 to have followed it with interest and even to have shown 
approval repeatedly during Hayne's speeches and to have sent 
notes and suggestions to him. It is hard to find any evidence 
to this effect from an eyewitness, but approval may probably 
be assumed, and Benton tells us 30 that Hayne was " under- 
stood to be speaking the sentiments of the Vice-President." 

Troubles were already fast thickening about Calhoun's great 
ambition, and the events of this debate added materially to 
them. Adams writes 31 that shortly after it was over, Cal- 
houn was warned by White of Florida of " the injudiciousness 
of the violent attacks of his partisans against New England; 
and that Van Buren was taking advantage of it, and might 
have the whole Eastern influence thrown into his scale by it, 
which otherwise Calhoun might expect for himself. He said 
Calhoun seemed to be exceedingly at a loss what to do; said 
that he had been obliged by his position to take the lead in 
the opposition to Mrs. Eaton; that he did not know what 

day on which Van Buren's organ announced that Jackson was again a 
candidate (Schouler's "United States," Vol. Ill, p. 497)- Lewis's 
machinations had begun ten days earlier. 

20 See, e.g., Curtis's " Webster," Vol. I, p. 365- Sargent's " Public Men 
and Events" (the author of which does not write as if he had been 
present), Vol. I, p. 172. 

30 " Thirty Years' View," Vol. I, p. 138. 

31 " Memoirs," Vol. VTII, p. 195. Others also saw at once this phase of 
the matter; and Judge Richard Peters wrote to Joseph Hopkinson, about 
January 24: "There has been going on in the Senate, and it will proceed 
to-morrow, a most angry contest in which Hayne and Benton are in 
array against Webster. ... It grows out of the question of the Western 
lands. . . . There never was a course so ruinous as that which is now 
pursued by the Calhoun party in this violence towards Webster. All 
their hold in the East will be 'broken down by it, and Van Buren looks 
upon their conduct with the highest satisfaction. The whole East will 
support Webster." . . . The letter is dated " Sunday evening," and post- 
marked : " City of Washington, Jany. 24th." Hopkinson Collection, as 
above. 



398 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

things were coming to," and so on. Possibly the advice given 
him was good ; but the ultimate truth is that he was powerless, 
and the causes that were driving him away from all Northern 
support and to the inevitable loss of the Presidency were as 
resistless as fate. He and a hundred thousand others of the 
wisest of the sons of men were but autumn leaves in a gale 
to the long-grown trend of public events. 

The Jefferson Birthday Dinner on April 13, 1830, furnished 
another similar portent. Designed of course by the South 
to add the strength of Jefferson's great name to their cause, 
and perhaps in the hope of enlisting Jackson, too, it was 
at once turned to ashes on their lips by the famous toast the 
latter gave. It is the fashion to-day to belittle Jackson be- 
cause of his faults; but the man who could under the inspira- 
tion of the hour and by absolutely secret determination in 
advance so catch the best popular feeling by that toast as to 
carry with him the whole North and a good fraction of the 
South occupies far too high a place for most of us to pick at, 
and there is more than one like instance in Jackson's career. 

" Our Federal Union : it must be preserved," 32 rang like 
a clarion note from one end of the country to the other, and 
has ever since entirely dwarfed Calhoun's answering toast, 
admirably put from his viewpoint, but far too long, as well 
as too much hedged about, and necessarily quite lacking any 
note to stir the blood to patriotic f ervor : 

" The Union, — next to our Liberty most dear. May we all 
remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the 
rights of the States and distributing equally the benefit and the 
burthen of the Union." 

22 There is no doubt that this was the actual form of the toast. It did 
not contain in its last clause the words " and shall be." Prof. Bassett 
("Jackson,"' Vol. II, p. 555) shows this conclusively from Van Buren's 
MS. autobiography in the Van Buren Papers in the Library of Congress, 
if even there could otherwise have been doubt. It was written down be- 
fore the dinner, after consultation between Jackson and Van Buren. In 
proposing it, Jackson inadvertently omitted the word " federal," but added 
it at the suggestion of Hayne. The Charleston "Courier" of April 28. 
however, gives the toast with the addition of the words " and shall be," 
and adds that the Philadelphia " Sentinel," a warm and original Jackson 
paper, maintained that the " Telegraph " was in error in reporting it in 
the form given in the text. 



THE WIDENING BREACH 399 

Still another influence was tending to bring about the 
shipwreck of Calhoun's ambition. Crawford was an evil 
genius to him, and never forgave his young rival the rebuffs 
of 18 1 6 and 1824. A man with all the bitter vindictiveness 
of a politician, Crawford is perhaps not unfairly described 3S 
as being " deadly as a viper," and he not only pursued Cal- 
houn to the end but had at last a chief part in preventing 
the South Carolina leader from attaining the Presidency. A 
strong effort was also made by him in 1828 to secure his old 
enemy's defeat for the second office but he failed entirely to 
prevent the nomination, even in Georgia as well as in his own 
native State of Virginia. He did finally succeed in the elec- 
toral college of Georgia in inducing seven of the nine electors 
to cast their votes for William Smith instead of Calhoun for 
Vice-President; but this spiteful fling was the measure of his 
success at that time, and it had of course no influence on the 
general result. The object of these attacks was long fully 
aware of them. 84 

At about the date of these efforts and for some time earlier, 

33 Schouler's " United States," Vol. Ill, p. 427. 

34 Calhoun's " Correspondence," pp. 258, 259. John Quincv Adams's 
" Memoirs." Vol. VII, p. 427 ; Calhoun's " Works," Vol. VI, " Appendix," 
pp. 384, 385, referring to Crawford's letter of October, 1828, to Major 
Barry, asking him to try and defeat Calhoun. Crawford's letter of Oc- 
tober 21. 1828. to Van Buren calendared in the Library of Congress' 
"Calendar (iqio) of the Papers of Martin Van Buren." and speaking of 
the impossibility of Georgia's voting for Calhoun for Vice-President as 
well as promising measures (evidently meaning the betrayal of Calhoun's 
alleged proposal in 1818 to arrest Jackson) to prevent Jackson from 
appointing him to the cabinet, in case of such defeat. In this letter 
Crawford shows that he was then striving to have Macon nominated in- 
stead of Calhoun : while at another time he was urging Clinton-Parton's 
"Jackson," Vol. Ill, pp. 132, 133: Bassett's "Jackson," Vol. II, p. 405. 
Cobb's " Leisure Labors," pp. 238-47, says that Crawford began to write 
to this general effect to Jackson's friends as early as " in the fall and win- 
ter of 1827," and that the letters were shown to Jackson but produced no 
result : see e.g., his letter of December 14, 1827, to Alfred Balch, in 
"Calhoun's Works." Vol. VI, "Appendix," pp. 356-58, and the above- 
mentioned one of October to Barry : Parton's " Jackson," as above and 
"Jackson's Exposition," in "Benton's View," Vol. I, p. 174. In the Balch 
letter, Crawford also wrote: "Jackson ought to know, and. if he does 
not. he shall know, that, at the Calhoun caucus in Columbia, the term 
'Military Chieftain' was bandied about more flippantly than by Henry 
Clay, and that the family friends of Mr. Calhoun were most active in 
giving it currency." Presumably, this refers to Calhoun's nomination for 
the Presidency on November 29, 1823, after the death of Lowndes, ante, 
p. 298. 



4 oo LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Calhoun was engaged in correspondence with Monroe and oth- 
ers in the already mentioned effort to prevent enemies from 
embroiling Monroe with Jackson in regard to a question 
whether the former had fully supported the latter during his 
Mississippi campaign. This came later to touch upon Mon- 
roe's conduct in regard to Jackson during the Seminole cam- 
paign also. One letter of Monroe to Calhoun had been pur- 
loined from the latter's papers and shown to Jackson and was 
thought to evince hostility on the part of Monroe, but Cal- 
houn traced the matter out with much difficulty and, by ex- 
hibiting the whole correspondence to Jackson's friends and 
Jackson himself, succeeded for the time in appeasing the lat- 
ter's wrath and inducing him to see that Monroe had in reality 
been his friend. 35 

Little did Calhoun at first know that at the very time 
of this correspondence whisperings were flitting about be- 
tween Crawford and other enemies of his which were ere long 
to lead to a far more deadly outburst against himself on 
the part of Jackson. This intrigue, like most, is involved in 
some obscurities ; but is fairly clear in its main outlines. It is 
all originally traceable to Crawford, but probably began soon 
to be used by others for their own purposes. In January, 
1828, while Calhoun was engaged in the just-mentioned efforts 
on Monroe's behalf, he had some suspicion that he was to be 
included in the attacks and wrote Monroe 3t5 that he hoped " to 
be able to trace the whole affair, but I am strongly inclined 
to think it was intended to fall on both of us." And in the 
spring of that year he was vaguely informed that efforts were 
making at Nashville to injure him, but paid little heed to the 
rumors. 37 

These early efforts of Crawford were quite unsuccessful, and 
Jackson refused to believe the charges when they were called 
to his attention. But the stories were far too rich a morsel 
to fail of sprouting some day. Jackson went with a party, 

35 Calhoun's "Correspondence," pp. 242, 243, 254-256, 260-263, 266; 
"Writings of James Monroe," Vol. VII, pp. 137-43, 156-161, 173, 174. 

175-177- 
*■ Calhoun's " Correspondence." p. 256. 
^"Calhoun's Works," Vol. VI. "Appendix," p. 354. 



THE WIDENING BREACH 401 

of which Lewis and J. A. Hamilton were members, to attend 
at New Orleans the celebration of his famous battle, on 
January 8, 1828. On the way down the river, there was of 
course much talk among these friends in regard to the coming 
Presidential campaign, and Hamilton, who was, with Van 
Buren and the New York leaders in general, an old supporter 
of Crawford, offered to visit the latter and try to enlist his 
influence. Jackson was quite willing that this should be done, 
though he still thought that Crawford had been his chief op- 
ponent in Monroe's cabinet, during the Seminole campaign 
discussions. Whether any secret motive or special knowledge 
on the part of Hamilton led to this offer has never been 
disclosed, but a highly suggestive hint upon the point will ap- 
pear shortly. 

Hamilton, on his way North again, went as far as Sparta, 
Georgia, in the hope of seeing Crawford, but learned that 
he was probably absent from home, and accordingly wrote a 
letter 3S from Savannah to John Forsyth upon the matter 
he had in hand. The latter saw Crawford later, and wrote 
Hamilton on February 8, 1828, to say that Crawford stated 
that Calhoun and not he was the member of Monroe's cabinet, 
who had wished to arrest Jackson. 39 Some months later 
(April 1, 1828) Lewis visited New York and was shown this 
letter by Hamilton. There, however, in the unfathomable 
bosoms of these two adroit politicians lay hidden for a long 
time the secret of the existence of this political nugget of 
priceless value. 

One other event, which occurred during Hamilton's return 
North, must be mentioned here. He stopped in Washing- 
ton and made a friendly call on Calhoun, during the course 
of which he asked the latter in easy conversation, — of course, 
after consulting with a friend as to the propriety of his so 
doing, — whether " at any meeting of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, 

38 J. A. Hamilton's statement of February 22, 1831, published in the 
New York " Evening Post," and reprinted in Niles's " Register," Vol. XL, 
pp. 41, 42. His letter to Forsyth was dated January 25, 1828. 

39 Forsyth's letter to Hamilton of February 8, 1828, is printed in Niles's 
"Register," Vol. XL, p. 45. See, also, letter of Crawford to a friend 
in Shipp's "Crawford," pp. 208, 209. 



4 02 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the propriety of arresting General Jackson for anything done 
by him during the Seminole war had been discussed? To 
which he [Calhoun] replied: ' Never. Such a measure was 
not thought of, much less discussed.' ' This was before Ham- 
ilton received the reply from Forsyth. At a later date (Feb- 
ruary 25), but still before Forsyth's answer came to hand on 
February 28, Hamilton wrote from New York for a written 
confirmation of Calhoun's verbal reply, but the latter was not 
again to be caught. He suspected by that time that the ques- 
tion had some connection with the matter of the letter pur- 
loined from him and the effort to embroil Monroe with Jack- 
son, and declined either to answer or to be quoted. 40 

If Hamilton had no actual knowledge that Calhoun had 
been connected with the cabinet suggestion to punish Jack- 
son, perhaps all this would have been unobjectionable, nor 
does he anywhere drop a hint that he already knew the truth 
pretty well. Lewis, too, tells the story as if Hamilton's offer 
on the river steamer to visit Crawford had been a sudden in- 
spiration of that gentleman. Perhaps, moreover, Lewis 
thought this, for those engaged in such matters hardly allow 
their right hand to know what their left hand doeth, let 
alone tell others what they are up to. 

But Hamilton did apparently know. Not only would he 
otherwise never have thought of asking Calhoun, before 
Forsyth's answer came to hand, in regard to the motion in the 
cabinet to arrest Jackson; but, more than this, the Jackson 
papers 41 have since furnished strong evidence that he knew 
well enough at that very time, that Crawford had already said 

40 Hamilton's "Evening Post" statement, ut supra. See, also, Cal- 
houn's additional statement of February 24, 1831, in the " U. S. Tele- 
graph," reprinted in Niles's "Register," Vol. XL, pp. 42-45, and his 
" Pamphlet." I give Hamilton's question and Calhoun's answer in Hamil- 
ton's words. Calhoun's account is much the same. He writes that the 
question was " whether any motion had been made in the cabinet to ar- 
rest him (Jackson). To which I replied in the negative. It may be 
proper to remark that no such motion or any other was made. The dis- 
cussion in reference to the course that might be pursued towards him, 
took place on a suggestion of the propriety of an inquiry into his con- 
duct and my answer was therefore in strict conformity with the facts. 

4i Bassett's " Jackson," Vol. II, pp. 507, 508, citing letter of August 10, 
1831, from R. G. Dunlap to Jackson, in Library of Congress, and printed 
in' "American Historical Magazine" (Nashville), Vol. IX, p. 93. 



THE WIDENING BREACH 403 

to some one else, that Calhoun and not himself had been hos- 
tile to Jackson. Hamilton's offer to visit Crawford was merely 
an adroit method of securing evidence to that effect, and 
perhaps at the same time of screening some one higher up 
from being known in the matter. 

We must now go back a year or so, and at least an indica- 
tion will be found as to who may have been Hamilton's original 
informant and may have desired to be unknown. In April, 
1827, Van Buren and Cambreleng paid a visit to Crawford 
at the latter's home. 42 They were both old supporters of 
Crawford, both politicians to the marrow, and their visit was 
not for the purpose of cheering the lonely hours of a much 
broken old man. Politics was the game they played and the 
outlook of the political field at that time was, beyond doubt, 
their frequent subject of conversation. Indeed, Crawford 
says as much in the letter referred to. A Presidential election 
was only a year and a half ahead, Jackson far in the lead 
as the candidate of the opposition to Adams, and Calhoun, 
hated of Crawford and feared by Van Buren, very prominent 
for the second office. Only a few months later, moreover, 
Crawford was actively engaged in correspondence far and 
wide in his effort to prevent the nominaton of Calhoun. 

It is almost inconceivable under these circumstances that 
Crawford should not have told those highly distinguished 
visitors his alleged true version of the events in Monroe's 
cabinet. It seems that in every probability here is the source 
whence, directly or by subterranean burrowings, the knowledge 
of this great secret came originally to Hamilton's ears. Van 
Buren's later denials of all knowledge of the intrigue will be 
mentioned hereafter. 

The existence of Crawford's letter was long kept unknown, 
and few, if any, others were told of it, until not only Jackson's 
election but some eight months after he became President. 
In November, 1829, however, at a dinner given by him to 
Monroe, the matter advanced a step, — and a very important 
one. Lewis, Eaton, and Marshal Tench Ringgold were pres- 

42 Crawford's letter of December 14, 1827, to Alfred Balch, printed in 
Calhoun's " Works," Vol. VI, " Appendix," pp. 356, 357- 



404 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

ent, and the latter told Lewis that in the Seminole discussion 
Monroe had been Jackson's only friend. Lewis expressed 
great surprise, and with the feline innocence 43 of his class 
drew Ringgold on by saying that Calhoun was always under- 
stood to have favored Jackson. Later in the evening, when 
Eaton, Lewis and Jackson were left alone, the two former had 
some talk as to the earlier conversation with Ringgold. Jack- 
son, interrupted in his reverie under the inspiration of a pipe 
and wreaths of smoke, asked ere long what they were talking 
about, and was told what Ringgold had said. He naturally 
expressed great surprise. 

Evidently, the psychological moment had at length arrived. 
Lewis at once told Jackson of the Forsyth letter, and the conse- 
quence was that the very next day this equerry was dispatched 
to New York to secure the precious document and show it to 
Jackson. Hamilton had some conscientious scruples, how- 
ever, and thought that he ought first to obtain Forsyth's per- 
mission. To this, Jackson assented, and as Hamilton and 
Forsyth were both soon to be in Washington at the opening of 
the session, the latter was spoken to there, but he in turn 
had scruples and said that Crawford should be asked about 
it. So this step also was taken, but it remains buried in 
mystery why all the months from early December, 1829, to 
April 16, 1830, were allowed to pass by before Forsyth's let- 
ter of inquiry was sent to Crawford. This was three days 
after the events of the Jefferson Anniversary Dinner, and 
perhaps here again we may find a psychological moment. 
Crawford's answer was written April 30 and was handed over 
to Jackson on May 12. 44 

43 " See you now ; 

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth ; 
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach. 
With windlasses, and with assays of bias, 
By indirections find directions out." 

44 On all this subject in general, see "Major Lewis's Narrative," in 
Parton's "Jackson," Vol. Ill, pp. 310-330, and Bassett's "Jackson," Vol. 
II, pp. 506, et seq. The latter author's use of the Jackson and Van 
Buren Papers has rendered his narrative very useful, and I owe much 
of mv account to him. See, also, Calhoun's " Pamphlet" in his "Works," 
Vol. VI. "Appendix," pp. 349-445, or Niles's "Register," Vol. XL, pp. 
11-24; his later statement and Hamilton's in ibid., pp. 41-45; Van Buren's 
denial in ibid., p. 45; and Forsyth's statement in ibid., p. 88. 



THE WIDENING BREACH 405 

By that time, Calhoun and Jackson were already drifting 
far apart. Their relations had indeed at no time been close, 
and the former said, in 1837: "There never was any inti- 
macy, at any time, between him and myself. Our relations 
were simply friendly, without being in any degree confiden- 
tial." 45 Now numerous jealousies and distrusts had arisen. 
These had probably begun with the formation of the cabinet, 
while the very recent Jefferson Birthday incident had left a 
sting, and the refusal to call on Mrs. Eaton was rankling deep. 
Everything was ripe for an explosion. The very day (May 
13) after receiving Crawford's letter to Forsyth, Jackson en- 
closed a copy to Calhoun with the name of Hamilton, Van 
Buren's close friend and supporter, suppressed, remarking in 
his accompanying letter upon the great surprise he felt at 
the statements and facts presented by Crawford, " so different 
from what I had heretofore understood to be correct," and 
desiring " to learn of you whether it be possible that the 
information given is correct; whether it can be, under all the 
circumstance of which you and I are both informed, that any 
attempt seriously to affect me was moved and sustained by 
you in the cabinet council." 

Here was a portentous incident indeed for Calhoun, and 
perhaps he at once foresaw its probable effect on his great 
ambition. He answered shortly the same day, promising a 
full reply later. This was sent on May 29th and freely admit- 
ted that in the cabinet he had at first maintained that Jackson's 
conduct should be investigated, but added that cabinet councils 
were not for the object of bringing together "opinions al- 
ready formed, but to form opinions on the course which the 
Government ought to pursue, after full and mature delibera- 
tion," and that it is accordingly the duty of members to present 
doubts and objections. He then went on to say that his argu- 
ments were met by others " growing out of a more enlarged 
view of the subject, as connected with the conduct of Spain 
and her officers. . . . After deliberately weighing every ques- 
tion, when the members of the cabinet came to form their 
final opinion, on a view of the whole ground, it was unani- 

45 Speech in Senate on February 23, 1837. "Works," Vol. Ill, p. 5*- 






- 



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-.-:■---. " - ■ .' . ' - '■-'- - ' ' " 



■TV tor 5 



— - 






THE WIDENING BREACH 407 

continued intrigue to bring about a breach between him and 
Jackson will hardly be doubted by any one. Long, it cer- 
tainly was, and large parts treated of the hidden intrigue with 
which Jackson had had nothing to do, but this latter was 
vital to Calhoun, and his pamphlet was of course intended 
for the public far more than for Jackson. Doubtless, his 
answer of May 29th had equally been written with the ex- 
pectation that it would some day be published. 

Calhoun thought 48 that his pamphlet had a great influence 
on the public, and it is very remarkable that overtures looking 
to a reconciliation were made to him early in 1831, before the 
appearance of his pamphlet but at a time when much of the 
correspondence had been seen by many people. 49 He wrote his 
brother-in-law on January 13, 1831, that " every opening was 
made for me to renew my intercourse with the President, which 
I have declined, and will continue so to do, till he retracts what 
he has done. His friends are much alarmed." 

It would, of course, not do to conclude from this evidence 
from one side alone that Jackson, or even his friends, for 
once sought to make peace in the heat of battle; but the 
statement is borne out by evidence of a conclusive character. 
Van Buren wrote 50 to precisely the same effect in his auto- 
biography, adding that the efforts nearly succeeded and that, 
if they had done so, Calhoun would have reached the goal of 
his ambition; and J. A. Hamilton also knew of the matter 
and wrote Jackson on February 3, 1831, that Lewis had told 
him " you had from the solicitations of the friends of both 
parties promised to bun- the affair in oblivion, provided the 
other party will act in good faith." 51 I know of no like in- 
stance in Jackson's career. He made up quarrels with several 
people, years after their occurrence, when his blood had cooled 

4% " Correspondence," pp. 290, 292. There is no little evidence to this 
same effect; but, on the other hand, Buchanan wrote from Washington 
("Works," by Moore, Vol. II, pp. 166, 167 ) on February 18, that the 
nphlet "has not produced the sensation here which was expected. I 
think it will not injure Jackson in the estimation of his friends in 
Pennsylvania." 

46 " Correspondence," pp. Z79, 280. 

"Bassett's "Jackson," Vol. II, pp. 516, 517. 

51 J. A. Hamilton's " Reminiscences," pp. 195. 19» 



4 o8 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

off, but there must have been serious alarm in his camp to 
lead to the proposals made to Calhoun in this case, when the 
gaudium ccrtaminis was still on. 

Probably, too, it was a lingering hope of reconciliation 
that had led Calhoun to submit his pamphlet before publica- 
tion to a friend of Jackson, in order that anything offensive 
to the latter might be omitted. Grundy seems to have acted 
in this matter for Calhoun, and called on Eaton as a friend 
of Jackson to go over the manuscript with him. They did 
this together, and alterations were suggested by Eaton, which 
Calhoun apparently agreed to. The main object was to get the 
pamphlet in such shape that Jackson would not feel obliged 
to answer publicly, and Eaton was to have explained all this 
to the President, but did not, because he concluded it would 
be " improper." Perhaps he feared an explosion of tem- 
per. 52 

Despite his overtures for a reconciliation, Jackson was evi- 
dently still in high wrath, and, in the end of 1830, before 
the quarrel became publicly known, seems to have been writing 
of Calhoun as " an ambitious demagogue . . . [who] would 
sacrifice friends and country, and move heaven and earth to 
gratify his unholy ambition," 53 and again he wrote of him 
to a friend, 54 at about the same time : 

You know the confidence I once had in that gentleman. ... I 
have a right to believe that most of the troubles, vexations and 
difficulties I have had to encounter, since my arrival in this city, 
have been caused by his friends. But for the present let this 
suffice. I find that Mr. Calhoun objects to the apportionment of 
the surplus revenues among the several States, after the public 
debt is paid. He is, also, silent on the bank question, and is be- 
lieved to have encouraged the introduction and adoption of the 
resolutions in the South Carolina Legislature relative to the 
tariff. I wish you to have a few numbers written on the ap- 
portionment of the surplus revenue, after the debt is paid. It 

52 Eaton's statement in the "Globe" of March 26, 1831, reproduced in 
Niles's " Register," Vol. XL, p. 88. 

• r,:i Letter in New York Public Library, quoted in Jervey's " Hayne," 
p. 280. 

54 Letter of December 31, 1830, to Judge Overton, in Parton's "Jackson," 
Vol. Ill, pp. 294, 295. 



THE WIDENING BREACH 409 

is the only thing that can allay the jealousies arising between the 
different sections of the country. 

This was mild enough, but with the public quarrel all bars 
were down, and in the latter half of 183 1 Jackson was writ- 
ing to Van Buren : 

You may rest assured Duff Green, Calhoun & Co. are politi- 
cally dead. 

And again: 

The fruitful mind of the great intriguer Calhoun with his aid 
Duff is upon the rack to find some plan to destroy me. 

And still another time : 

What must a moral world or community think of a man so 
perversely prone to secret lying as John C. Calhoun is proven to 
be? 

William R. King, too, described Calhoun to Van Buren in 
1833 as " (politically), a dead cock in the pit." 5r> 

Mention should be made here of the fact that, during the 
heat of this contest, about a month before the publication of 
Calhoun's pamphlet, there seems to have been a serious mis- 
understanding between Calhoun and Van Buren, and J. Q. 
Adams wrote on January 13, 1831, "there has been a very 
prevalent rumor that a challenge passed between them." 5G The 
matter was amicably settled about that time, but I have not 
learned what was the origin of the dispute. 

It seems to me perfectly clear that Calhoun proved con- 
clusively the entire propriety of his course in the cabinet in 
1 8 19, nor had Jackson any right to feel that there was shown 
at that time the least hostility to him. To suggest at first 
blush that the general's conduct should be made a matter of 
inquiry was not only justifiable but quite to be expected under 
the extraordinary circumstances. But there is another view 
of the matter to be considered, relating to subsequent events, 
and in this aspect Jackson's amazement and wrath at Craw- 

•" Letters of July it, September S> and November 14. 1831, and of 
January 9, 1833, in the Van Buren Papers in Library of Congress. 
56 " Memoirs," Vol. VIII, p. 274. 



410 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

ford's information are not to be wondered at. He had al- 
ways believed that Calhoun was his special defender in the 
Seminole discussion, and in 1819, — or 1821, 57 — offered his 
well-known toast to " John C. Calhoun, — an honest man, ' the 
noblest work of God,' " and wrote in 1825 that he was satisfied 
" Calhoun was the only friend I had in the cabinet." To be 
informed so circumstantially to the direct contrary would have 
surprised any one, let alone a person of Jackson's stamp. 

The main question then is whether Calhoun was to blame 
for the existence of Jackson's belief that he had been the latter's 
special defender. There was certainly no duty to go to the 
general and tell him the details of one's course in the matter, 
but the silence followed had its unpleasant features, and here 
is the weak spot in Calhoun's conduct. It is probable that 
opinions in regard to the matter had been expressed in his 
presence by Jackson which were wide of the actual state of the 
case and showed an entire conviction that the Secretary of War 
had been his chief defender, and to let these impressions stand 
without correction was at least a painful necessity of the oc- 
casion. 

It is not unlikely, moreover, that Calhoun did more than 
once, what we know he did in February, 1828, to J. A. Hamil- 
ton, shield himself under the verbal form of a question and 
give an answer, which, while strictly true, did yet produce an 
erroneous impression on his questioner. But what else could 
he do ? What course can a man follow, when asked a question 
which there is no right to ask? On the whole, I should say 
that he was not to blame and that his conduct was necessary 
in the great affairs he was concerned in, but it was a painful 
situation to be placed in, and no one could expect the other 

57 As both Lewis (see his statement in Parton's "Jackson," Vol. III. 
pp. 311-14) and Jackson himself ("Exposition" in "Benton's View" 
Vol. I, p. 177), say this toast was given at Winchester, Va., while Jack- 
son was on the way to Washington (January, 1819) to defend himself 
against the Congressional attack in the Seminole matter, I hardly feel 
at liberty to contradict them. I have, however, been entirely unable to 
find any mention of it in the papers of that time, and do find that it was 
given by him at a dinner at Nashville, upon his return home from Pensa- 
cola, in 1821. "The National Intelligencer" of December 8, 1821. Lewis 
probably only repeated what Jackson had told him, and either Jackson's 
memory was at fault, or he gave the same toast twice. 



THE WIDENING BREACH 411 

side to look upon his actions otherwise than as deception. 

Calhoun thought all through the controversy, and probably 
to the end of his life, that Van Buren was at the bottom of 
the attack upon him and so stated in more than one instance. 58 
Van Buren denied having had anything to do with it, and said 
that Hamilton's applications to Forsyth in 1828 and 1830 were 
made without his advice or procurement, adding that " he has, 
at no period, taken any part " in the matter. 59 But this does 
not cover the question of his having learned of Crawford's 
charges, when visiting the latter with Cambreleng in April, 
1827, nor deny that it was either through him or his friends 
that Hamilton acquired knowledge of the story at an early 
date. Probably, he could not have denied this, but, when once 
the luscious secret was thus started on its course, he was 
far too adroit to allow himself to be publicly caught in such 
an effort to ruin a rival. Nor was there the least necessity. 
His friends were quite enough. Perhaps Van Buren's rela- 
tion to the matter has been fairly summed up by saying that 
he was " studiously ignorant " 60 of it. 

At a later date, Jackson prepared an answer to Calhoun, 
which he at one time probably intended to print and issue. 
He sent it in April, 1832, to J. A. Hamilton for examination, 
but Hamilton " urgently advised him not to publish." 61 It 
was doubtless the same paper with which Calhoun thought in 
June of the same year that " Genl. Jackson is about to come 
before the publick," 62 but it did not then nor for many years see 
the light of day. Benton says it was withheld, because Jack- 
son decided it was unbecoming 63 for the President to engage 
in newspaper controversy, and he reproduces in his " View ' 

58 " Correspondence," pp. 289, 290. John Quincy Adams's "Memoirs," 

58 Van Buren's'" Statement" of February 25, 1831, in the " U. S. Tele- 
graph " of the 26th, and reprinted in Niles's " Register," Vol. XL, p. 45. 
See, also, Bassett's "Jackson," Vol. II, pp. 5i3-*5- 

80 Hunt's "Calhoun," p. 112. 

61 J- A. Hamilton's " Reminiscences," pp. 244, 245. 

"2 " Correspondence " p. 321. 

63 These words are 'written in June, 1912, when two would-be candidates 
of high Eastern culture have progressed far from such crude notions of 
a rough backwoodsman. 

04 Vol. I, pp. 167-180. Jackson's circumstantial story of the answer lie re- 
ceived to the Rhea letter is of course referred to, and I, at least, cannot 



4 i2 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

portions — probably the greater part — of the answer, in which 
the curious reader may find absolutely insoluble differences be- 
tween Jackson and his supporters on one side, and Monroe, 
Calhoun, and others on the opposite side. 

solve that mystery without questioning the veracity of one side or the other. 
Like instances have occurred in very recent days. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 

Defiance Discussed in South Carolina — Calhoun's Hesita- 
tions and Presidential Hopes — McDuffie's Speech of May 19, 
j83i — Calhoun Declares Himself — The Tariff Act of 1832 
— Letter to Governor Hamilton — The Nullification Conven- 
tion — The Unionists — Elected to Senate — Death of Presi- 
dential Hopes. 

Meanwhile, lowering clouds were fast rolling up, far away 
to the South, and all signs indicated the breaking of a storm of 
tropical fury. Carolina, as her sons have ever loved to call 
her, was making ready, small and alone as she was, to defy 
the Federal power and the man of iron nerve who then oc- 
cupied the Presidential office. It was a strange drama, and it 
turned out later to be but the prologue to a far greater and a 
terrible tragedy. 

Probably all the leading men of South Carolina engaged 
in public affairs and the majority of those taking any interest 
in politics knew pretty well what Nullification was and had 
some idea of how it was to be applied, after the publication 
of the "Exposition" and "Protest," at the end of 1828; 
but, of course, the average citizen had not yet given much atten- 
tion to the doctrine. Endless discussion was still necessary to 
bring about general acceptance and carry the State upon the 
issue. It was evidently agitated in every way for a long pe- 
riod, and earnest arguments, of which Calhoun's various papers 
are beyond doubt the most able, 1 addressed to the reason as 
well as to the feelings of the voters. 

1 Chancellor Harper, too, at Columbia, on September 20, 1830, de- 
livered so closely reasoned an address upon the subject that the character 
of his audience is hard to realize. It was printed in 1832, and a copy 
exists in the Library of the University of South Carolina, and also in 
the Library Co. of Philadelphia. 

413 



414 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUX 

Hamilton had an active hand in this agitation in general 
and was (as has been shown) the first to announce the doc- 
trine from the stump. He wrote Calhoun 2 on May 10, 1829: 

I have written to Hayne and Pinckney to keep up the fire on 
the tariff, and shall not be idle for the Southern Review 3 this 
summer at North Hampton. 

On the other side was, e. g., Judge Richardson's Address to 
the People. 4 in which he combatted most of the positions of 
the Xullifiers and warned the people that, if they voted to 
call a Convention, it must nullify and could not discuss, for that 
would be rebellion on its part. The body would only meet to 
declare the decision already made by the State. On the gen- 
eral doctrine, he objected that nothing was clear, and no one 
of their great statesmen had yet staked his reputation on the 
position that a State could nullify and yet remain in the Un- 
ion. Is Nullification Secession? he asked. And again: 

The advocates of this refined doctrine seem to forget that if 
the nullification be itself nullified by any foreign power or 
powers whatever [probably meaning by a Convention of the 
States], that the sovereign right of the State is subject to con- 
trol from abroad, which denies even.- attribute and characteristic 
attached to the meaning of sovereign power. . . . My under- 
standing cannot get over this stumbling block in the way. . . . 

In the winter of 1829-30, the subject was freely discussed 
in the South Carolina newspapers. Some were outspoken in 

2 " Calhoun Correspondence." p. 808. B. F. Pern.- (" Reminiscence^.' - 
p. 143") writes that Hamilton " was the gallant leader of the nullification 
party in South Carolina. He originated the nullification clubs, which 
were established in even,- district of the State, and which carried the 
election that fall [1831]. in two-thirds of the election districts. Mr. Cal- 
houn was the author of nullification in South Carolina, but Governor Ham- 
ilton made it a success throughout the State. But for him it would have 
fallen still-born, or been crushed in its swaddling clothe?.'' 

s Possibly two anonymous reviews of certain publications, which are 
in the " Southern Review " for August 1830. pp. 206 et seq., and for No- 
vember, 1830. pp. d2i et seq., are by Hamilton. 

4 " To the People, an Address in five numbers, originally published in 
the ' Camden Journal ' by ' Jefferson.' republished by permission of the 
author. Hon. J. S. Richardson, together with his speech delivered at the 
Statesboroui?h Dinner, in Opposition to Disunion, Convention and Nulli- 
fication." Charleston 1830. Pamphlet in Library- of College of Charles- 
ton. 






THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 415 

its favor, while others thought the whole doctrine absurd and 
were disgusted to hear it spoken of. 5 The idea, they would 
say, of nullifying and yet remaining a part of the Union; 
and so various writers under assumed names of ancient Rome 
threshed again over the same grain and chaff which had al- 
ready several times before in our history been winnowed in 
other parts of the country. All this went to the education of 
the voting masses, but besides these there were some particular 
leaders whom both sides were anxious to gain as recruits. 

William Drayton was one of these. Belonging to a family 
of power and wealth in a community where family counted 
for a great deal, and having shown marked ability in Congress, 
no wonder the nullifiers strove to bring him over entirely to 
their side. He was already one of their stoutest champions 
upon the main issue of the tariff, but refused entirely the 
remedy of Nullification. The first effort is said by one writer 
to have been to dragoon and drive him, and at some dinner Mc- 
Duffie, famous among orators for the vehemence of his ac- 
tion, is said to have appealed pointedly to him " as one of 
those who had drawn the state into her then alternative of 
resistance ... or tame submission. He quoted the speeches 
of Colonel Drayton delivered in Congress, full of invective 
and menace, committing the State to use force, if force were 
necessary." 6 

Later, gentle leading was tried at a dinner given at Charles- 
ton on July 4, 1830, to Hayne and Drayton. There was a 
vast crowd present, and Drayton was tremendously cheered 
as he rose to respond to the toast to him, — " with devoted 
firmness he has pursued the dictates of his conscience in 
opposition to the request of a respected portion of his con- 
stituents — we honor him for his independence." He said, 
however, once more that he could not accept Nullification, 
and the toast he gave expressed the wish that the flag may 
" ever wave, with undiminished lustre, over free, sovereign, 

5 McMaster's " United States." Vol. VI. pp. $2, 53- 

9 "Memoirs of James Louis Petigru," by William J. Grayson, pp. Ill, 
112. I have found no other evidence of this meeting and it may well be 
apocryphal. Perhaps Grayson confounded it with the meeting of July 
4, 1830; but he narrates it very clearly. 



416 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

and ' United States.' " Nor could he be shaken by the gentle 
suasion and splendid eloquence of Hayne nor by James Hamil- 
ton, Jr.'s, insinuating prediction that, however much he might 
differ from them at that time on details, yet as the text of his 
opinions affirmed the right of resistance, when South Carolina 
did act, he would be found in the van. 7 

Drayton remained an Unionist to the end, even voted in 
1833 for the Force Bill, and was finally one of those to leave 
the State. Others, and there were far more of them, took 
the opposite course and from opponents became outspoken 
and earnest advocates of the doctrine of Nullification. Con- 
spicuous among these was Chancellor Harper, who was a 
Nationalist in 1826 but became a leading nullifier and one of 
the chief supporters of the doctrine with his pen, though ap- 
parently always disliking Calhoun. 8 Wm. C. Preston, too, 
had formerly held other views, but was early won over by 
Calhoun. 9 And David R. Williams, who had strongly op- 
posed the earlier New England State Rights movements, be- 
came in time a staunch nullifier. 10 Much the same might be 
said of Hamilton, McDuffie, Hayne and others; nor was 
the record of Calhoun himself very different. 

All these events were of course well known and closely 
observed by Calhoun, and he was certainly by this time a leader 
in the whole movement, though it will soon appear that there 
were even yet times when he was not fast enough for the hot 
bloods and hesitated to take the awful plunge in full view of 
the whole country. Evidently, some others, too, hesitated 
at times on the brink. Thomas Ritchie, of the Richmond En- 
quirer thought in June, 1830, that the Southern troubles were 
far less menacing, and wrote " his brother on the 8th of the 
month : 

I had this day long conversations with Stevenson and with 

■> Niles's " Register," Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 375-92. 

8 Hunt's "Calhoun," p. 61. Letter of Thomas Cooper in "American 
Historical Review," (1000-01), p. 728. 
» Ibid. 
10 Pendleton's "Alexander H. Stephens," p. 32. Hunt's "Calhoun," p. 

237. 

II " The John Branch Historical Papers," of Randolph Macon College, 
Vol. Ill, pp. 207-209. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 417 

McDuffie. I infer from the remarks and tone of the latter that 
the storm in South Carolina is blowing over, that the proceed- 
ings of Congress 12 for the last few days previous to adjournment 
will have the effect of tranquillizing her excited politicians. . . . 
I told him very plainly that in my opinion Virginia would not co- 
operate in such a measure. He said the most the politicians of 
S. C. had thought of doing was to declare the Tariff null and 
void by a Convention, and then leaving it to her Juries to refuse 
giving Judgments on the Revenue Bonds. He seemed to think 
that even this course would now be abandoned. ... I confess 
upon the whole his tone is much softened down, and that I have 
almost lost all fear of a storm from the South. 

To just what extent Ritchie's understanding of McDuffie was 
correct must remain uncertain. He may have been guided 
to some extent by his feelings, but Hayne also wrote 
Van Buren on October 28, 1830, that the Nullification plans 
were much exaggerated ; 13 and there is, moreover, evidence 
that Calhoun, too, was at about that time hesitating to cross 
the fateful Rubicon. Thus, on September 11, 1830, he wrote 
a long letter 14 from Fort Hill to his friend Maxcy, who had 
evidently urged him to certain steps in some important matter 
as to himself — presumably in regard to the presidency. This 
private letter can hardly be supposed to do otherwise than 
represent its writer's genuine opinions and shows him full 
of earnest devotion to the Union but feeling compelled by the 
sacred interests of home to the course he and South Carolina 
were advocating, and absolutely convinced that they were 
guarding real liberty. It shows him, too, convinced by that 
time, — and it is, so far as I have found, his earliest expression 
of this belief, — that slavery was the fundamental cause of 
the differences between the sections, and the tariff but the 
occasion. The letter reads in part : 

Your opinion has been made up too much, as it relates to me 
individually, and my future prospects. The partiality of a long 
and ardent friendship may be well excused in taking so re- 

12 Referring doubtless to the veto of the Maysville Road hill. 
"Letter in Van Buren Papers, cited in Bassett's "Jackson/ Vol. II, 

P- 558. 
14 The Maxcy-Markoe Collection in Library of Congress. 



418 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

stricted a view; but, I fear, the world and my own judgment, 
would not be so lenient toward me, were I to act on it. In this, 
as well as in all the other trying situations, in which I have been 
placed, I must merge my interest, in the higher sense of duty; 
and to do that, which with the best lights I have, may seem 
right, regardless of consequences. Not that I am indifferent to 
what concerns myself, or my future advancement. It would be 
mere affectation to pretend to such indifference, but, I trust, how- 
ever strong may be my ambition, my sense of duty is still 
stronger. . . . 

From a sense of propriety connected with my relations to the 
General Government, I have not intermingled with the great con- 
test between it and the State, except so far as might seem advisable 
to direct the eye of the state to the constitution, instead of looking 
beyond it, for the redress of its wrongs. My friends, out of the 
State, seem to think, at least many of them, that another duty 
is imposed on me, to step forward in order to arrest the current 
of events. They appear to take it for granted, that it is in my 
power. In this they make a great mistake. In my opinion there 
is but one man in this Union, who can quiet the State, I mean 
the President of the United States. If he were to come out de- 
cidedly in his message to Congress recognizing the justice of the 
complaints of the South, and throwing his weight without equivo- 
cation on the side of equalizing the burdens and benefits of the 
Union, the State would undoubtedly pause, in the hope of re- 
dress by the General Government, but for me, who have so little 
control over its movements, to attempt to stay the present cur- 
rent, were I so inclined, would, under my impression, be almost 
an act of madness. In fact, I thought the Maysville veto, would 
dispose the State to make another effort through the General 
Government for relief, and so expressed myself freely to my 
friends before I left Washington, but I found on my return, that 
so far from that being the case, the question of Convention or no 
Convention already made all over the State. Nor am I sur- 
prised, when I come to reflect, that the veto had so little effect, 
on the publick mind here. The message was drawn up, at least 
in appearance, with too much art, and looked too much like court- 
ing all sides, to satisfy those, who were contending for principles, 
which they believed were essential to the preservation of their 
liberty. . . . 

If, I really believed, that civil discord, revolution, or disunion 




THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 419 

would follow from the measure contemplated, I would not hesi- 
tate, devoted to our system of government, as I am, to throw my- 
self in the current with the view to arrest it at every hazard, but 
believing that the State, while she is struggling to preserve her 
reserved powers, is acting with devoted loyalty to the Union, no 
earthly consideration would induce me to do an act, or utter a 
sentiment, which would cast an imputation on her motives. 
Should the State ever look beyond her present object, to pre- 
vent a consolidation of all power in the General Government, and 
thereby the loss of our liberty and Union, I trust no good citizen 
would better understand his duty to the Union or be more prompt 
to perform it, than myself ; but of this there is not the least fear, 
unless the Genl. Government should undertake to oppose force 
to Constitutional and peaceful remedies. 

I consider the Tariff, but as the occasion, rather than the real 
cause of the present unhappy state of things. The truth can no 
longer be disguised, that the peculiar domestick institution of the 
Southern States, and the consequent direction, which that and 
her soil and climate have given to her industry, has placed them 
in regard to taxation and appropriations in opposite relations to 
the majority of the Union; against the danger of which, if there 
be no protective power in the reserved rights of the States, they 
must in the end be forced to rebel, or submit to have their perma- 
nent interests sacrificed, their domestick institutions subverted 
by Colonization and other schemes, and themselves & children 
reduced to wretchedness. Thus situated, the denial of the right 
of the State to interfere constitutionally in the last resort, more 
alarms the thinking, than all other causes. . . . 

Again, on November 3, when the Legislature was soon 
to meet and the question of calling a convention to be decided, 
he wrote Maxcy : 

I see a great crisis. I pray God that our beloved country may 
pass it in safety. I did hope that the election of General Jack- 
son would have carried us through by his firmness and patriot- 
ism, with safety. May he yet do it: but my hope is faint in- 
deed. 

As is well known, this first effort to call a Convention failed 
at the session of the State Legislature in the end of 1830. 

18 Maxcy-Markoe Collection, ibidem. 



420 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Its success would certainly have meant Nullification. Preston 
had made the motion to call a Convention after the ensuing 
session of Congress, but D. E. Huger then moved a vastly 
milder measure, and Preston's motion, which required a two- 
thirds vote, barely secured an actual majority in the House 
of 60 Ayes to 56 Noes. A correspondent of the Courier wrote 
that " never has there, in my knowledge, been such intense and 
bitter excitement in the Legislature," while far-off Niles in- 
dulged in an altogether premature paean of triumph as to 
the complete defeat the nullifiers would suffer at the next elec- 
tion. 16 

Other steps, which these latter doubtless regarded with 
more satisfaction, had better success in the Legislature, and it 
is likely that Calhoun, who was usually very punctual in at- 
tending Congress but did not this year reach Washington 
until December 27, 17 had remained South in consequence of 
these matters. Not only was William Smith defeated for 
the U. S. Senatorship, but the Legislature once more passed 
a series of resolutions, 18 which had evidently been drawn in 
close accord with the famous Resolutions of 1798 and 1799. 
They asserted the general doctrines of State Rights, and added 
that the tariff acts were " deliberate and highly dangerous 
and oppressive violations of the constitutional compact, and 
that whenever any State, which is suffering under this op- 
pression, shall lose all reasonable hope of redress from the 
wisdom and justice of the Federal Government, it will be its 
right and duty to interpose, in its sovereign capacity, for the 
purpose of arresting the progress of the evil occasioned by 
the said unconstitutional acts." 

At the session of Congress of 1830-31, another effort was 
made by the Southerners, which must be referred to. The 
right to have a decree of the highest court of a State revised 

16 Jervey's " Hayne," 284, 28s: Charleston "Courier" of December 3, 
1830; Niles's Register. Vol. XXXIX, p. 330. 

« Niles's " Register," Vol. XXXIX, p. 3^. 

18 South Carolina Laws, &c, 1830, p. 59. See. also, Niles's " Register," 
Vol. XXXIX, pp. 304, 305. Jackson thought Calhoun had encouraged the 
introduction of these resolutions; letter of December 31, 1830, to Judge 
Overton quoted ante, Vol. II, pp. 408, 409. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 421 

by the United States Supreme Court had been inserted in 
the Judiciary Act of 1789 by the fathers fresh from the Con- 
stitutional Convention, but had always been a subject of at- 
tack by the ultra State-Rights School, and the intention to 
authorize it denied. The provision might well come to be 
very inconvenient to South Carolina in her Nullification strug- 
gle, and on December 21 Warren R. Davis introduced a bill 
into the House to repeal it. This was favorably reported 
from committee, but was lost in the House on January 29. 

Calhoun had not yet reached Washington, at the time of 
the introduction of the measure, and there is nothing definite 
to connect him with it, but Davis was his close friend, and 
Calhoun wrote Hammond on the subject on January 15th, 
remarking that the discussion " will doubtless strengthen our 
doctrines, as the occurrence in Georgia has done." He seems 
to have thought the repeal would pass the House, and added : 
" however strange it may seem, there are many zealously in 
favour of the repeal, who are violently opposed to what they 
call Nullification, 19 as if the appeal did not comprehend and 
go beyond Nullification." 

In this same letter of January 15, 1831, events were given 
another push forward. Calhoun wrote that, as an united ef- 
fort of the South seemed hopeless of attainment during Jack- 
son's time : " we must next look to the action of our own 
State, as she is the only one, that can possibly put herself on her 
sovereignty." In other words, the answers of the sister States 
had been so unfavorable, that it was plain they would not join 
in the movement. South Carolina alone must nullify. 

Historians have differed in regard to how far Calhoun 
was known at the time as the author of the " Exposition " and 
as a leader in general in directing the course of his State. 

10 Calhoun did not like the word Nullification,— perhaps because it 
implied more than he meant. His purpose was to force the calling of 
a convention of the States. " Nullification," so he is reported as saying, 
"is not my word. I never use it. I always say State Interposition. My 
purpose is a suspensive veto to compel the installing of tin- highest 
tribunal provided in the Constitution, to decide on the point in dispute. 
I do not wish to destroy the Union, I only wish to make it honest 
Charles Coterworth Pinckney's "John C. Calhoun, from a Southern Stand- 
point," " Lippincott's Magazine." Vol. LXII, pp. 81-90. 



422 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

What has been quoted, however, from his Autobiography in 
regard to the authorization he gave Preston to name him as 
the waiter, and again what he said to many visitors at Fort 
Hill in the summer of 1828 as to his ideas of the proper 
course to pursue, can hardly leave much doubt that the public 
men of South Carolina generally knew his beliefs and his ac- 
tions. This receives confirmation, too, from what Poinsett 
told Adams 20 in August of 1830 that Calhoun was at the 
bottom of the whole agitation and was " the instigator of the 
most violent measures." 

It does not at all follow from this, however, that the general 
public of South Carolina or leading men in other parts of the 
country knew his relations to the matter, and the evidence 
seems to show that they did not. Adams's note of Poinsett's 
remark indicates surprise, and Benton, writing of January, 
1830, says: "Mr. Calhoun had not then uncovered his po- 
sition in regard to Nullification." 21 

A few indications, too, reach us from South Carolina. 
Thus, the Charleston Courier, 22 in announcing the appear- 
ance of Calhoun's letter of July 26, 183 1, 23 in the Pendleton 
Messenger, spoke of it as an ingenious defense of the doc- 
trines of the " Exposition," " which is understood to have 
been written by Mr. Calhoun." And " Civis " in the same 
paper of August 15, while equally saying that Calhoun had 
written the " Exposition," yet added that he had only now 
at length announced himself and had theretofore been in a 
most pitiable situation. Then the writer goes on : 

It is believed that Mr. Calhoun was anxious he should be con- 
cealed. It has been frequently denied that he was the author, 
and both he and his friends indulged a hope that it could not be 
fastened upon him. 

But longer concealment became impossible, added Civis, and 

20 " Memoirs," Vol. VIII, p. 237. Poinsett added, it may be said as 
a picture of the time, that he had come away from South Carolina, 
" because it was in every respect too hot for him." 

21 " Thirty Years' View," Vol. I, p. 142, referring to the Hayne-Webster 
debate. 

22 Issue of August 11, 1831. 

23 See infra, pp. 435, 436. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 423 

therefore he has come out and is now ruined, a laughing stock. 24 
Finally, Judge Richardson, in his address of 1830, argued 
strongly against Nullification, and then wrote : 

Not one of our great statesmen has said that the constitutional 
right to nullify a federal law is clear; and that this is the time 
for the people to practise it. Whatever obscure rumor there may 
be on the subject, we cannot trace the principle up to any direct 
sanction of our esteemed Vice-President. 

It will soon appear, too, that the Unionists took the ground 
in 1 83 1 that he had not declared himself and sought to drive 
him to do so. 

It is true that he had been connected at times with some 
toasts, which seemed to indicate his opinions clearly enough. 
Thus, as has been seen, at a dinner on July 4, 1828, he had 
proposed "The Congress of '76 — they taught the world 
how oppression could be successfully resisted, may the lesson 
teach rulers that their only safety is in justice and modera- 
tion." 25 And again, at a public dinner given him at Pendle- 
ton in the end of March, 183 1, one of the regular toasts was 
" The Union — May the period be indefinitely postponed when 
we may be compelled to choose between its dissolution, and 
submission to a government of unlimited powers." 26 

Still there was nothing to connect him directly with nullifica- 
tion, in the minds of the multitude. The fact of his connection 
was evidently denied, 27 as well as asserted. Nor is it likely 
that he wanted his beliefs to* be widely known. He was 
still burning with passion to be President and had lingering 
hopes of success, while his open siding with the Nullifiers 
would evidently extinguish for the time that dream of his 
ambition. It too plainly meant the loss of the North, and 

2 * The reader will bear in mind that the "Courier" was strongly 
Unionist. 

25 Ante, Vol. II, p. 373- 

26 Niles's " Register," Vol. XL, p. 171. , . . 

27 On August 21, 1831, shortly after Calhoun had fully announced his 
views on nullification to the public in his letter of July 26 to the Pendleton 
" Messenger" (infra, pp. 435. 436), Duff Green wrote to Cralle that Cal- 
houn's " friends had been taught to believe that he was not a nullifier. 
"Calhoun As Seen by his Political Friends," etc., in "Publications of 
Southern History Association," Vol. VII, p. 167. 



424 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

we shall soon see that he fully appreciated this at the time. 
Ambition and mere self-interest may well have kept him back 
from hurrying on into the contest, but they cannot have 
impelled him to it, as the world has thought they did. No 
wonder, indeed, that he stood on the brink, hesitating, and 
no wonder that this course of his lasted so long that the hot 
bloods of South Carolina became a little distrustful and even 
sought to dragoon him. 

At some time during this winter of 1830—31, he had said 
to M. L. Davis, a well-known writer interested in public 
affairs, that he was the strong man of the South for the Presi- 
dency and would receive the votes of all those States except 
Georgia, and Davis understood him to intend to be a candidate 
against Jackson at the approaching election. 28 In the latter 
part of that month, too, it was perfectly apparent (as will very 
shortly be shown) to Hamilton and Hammond 29 of South 
Carolina that he was still under the obsession of presidential 
hopes. As late as May, after those two leading men had shown 
very plainly their entire want of sympathy with him in this, 
though he wrote to Hammond on the 16th : 

As to myself, I feel but little solicitude. In the present state 
of things, I have but little ambition to administer the Govern- 
ment. 

Yet his real feelings were evidently much more clearly ex- 
pressed in a letter of the 25th to his friend Van Deventer, 
to whom he wrote : 

I am at perfect liberty to determine the position I may assume, 
unrestricted by any other obligation, except those of patriotism 
and duty. It is time enough to take my stand. An early de- 
velopment would do mischief, instead of good. Moderation be- 
comes, in my situation, alike a dictate of duty and prudence ; but 
you may rest assured of one thing, that I will in the coming 
contest act second to no one. I feel that it would degrade me. 
I will stand on my own ground, which I know to be strong in 
principle and the publick support. I do not fear to carry the 

2 8 J. Q. Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. VIII, p. 333. 

28 James H. Hammond, then editor of the " Southern Times," of 
Columbia. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 425 

whole South with me, acting as it becomes my duty, which I 
will take care to do. I never stood stronger. I have the strong- 
est assurance of a decided and successful support in Virginia 
which in the present state of things is all important ; but what- 
ever strength I may have, I will deem it to be my duty, in the 
present critical state of our affairs, to direct to the publick good 
exclusively. 

Even in December, he was not absolutely without hope and in 
speaking of Jackson, said of himself that he " had it in his 
power to annihilate him — but would act on the defensive." 30 

It will shortly be shown, however, that long ere December 
he had cast the die, which he had so long been balancing in 
his hand, and declared his views to the public in the fullest 
manner. It had indeed, in May, if not earlier, grown ap- 
parent that he must do so. He was in Columbia in the middle 
of March, after the session of Congress, and had a long con- 
versation with Hammond on public affairs, of which the latter 
made extensive notes. These fully bear out all that has been 
said of his hopes and hesitations, as well as of the doubts of 
him entertained by Hammond and at least one other South 
Carolina leader. As Hammond writes in his Memorandum : 31 

Columbia, 18th March, 1831. 
I called at 7 o'clock this morning at Judge DeSaussure's to see 
Mr. Calhoun, the Vice President of the United States. He is on 
his way from Washington to his residence in Pendleton. On re- 
ceiving notice of his arrival in town, yesterday morning, I paid 
him a visit of civility, and my call this morning was in conse- 
quence of a wish wh. he expressed to have some private con- 
versation with me. He was alone, and immediately entered freely 
into the discussion of the affairs of the Nation. He said that 
great changes had taken and were taking place now in the politi- 
cal elements and that the course of a few months would exhibit 
a situation of parties in the country as extraordinary, as it had 
been unexpected. Genl. Jackson he said was losing the confi- 
dence of the Republican party every where, and even Tennessee 
had to a man sustained him (Mr. C) in the late rupture wh. 

so " Correspondence," p. 305- .. „ „ ,. . . „. . . , 

si " Nullification in South Carolina, 1830-34, American Historical 

Review," Vol. VI (190001), pp. 741-745- 



426 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

had taken place between himself and the General. Kentucky 
was with him, — so was Pennsylvania, and Virginia with the ex- 
ception of Stevenson and Archer. In fact three fourths of the 
members of Congress were with him agt. the President. That 
he (Gen. J) had deserted all his political positions; he had first 
intimated he would not be a candidate for re-election, and now 
was; that he would not appoint members of Congress to office 
and had done so continually, and in short was as jealous of his 
military fame, as ever was Othello of his wife and easily played 
upon with it, by the cunning men by whom he is surrounded. For 
these reasons he thought confidence of the Republican party in 
General Jackson very much diminished; and for himself, he had 
dissolved all ties, political or otherwise, with him and forever. 
He did not think him as sincere a man, as he once did. With re- 
gard to the opposition, Mr. Calhoun thought he could discern a 
crack in that party also. The Tariff-men were beginning to believe 
that to push their policy any further would be a desperate move- 
ment, that would in all probability destroy the whole of it, and 
therefore the most reflecting among them were not disposed to 
support Henry Clay, for fear of his going too far with the sys- 
tem. Mr. Webster he thought the only very prominent man 
thoroughly in favor of Mr. Clay. The members from Kentucky 
had gone home resolved to push the election against Clay, tho' 
not in favor of Jackson. Should they succeed Mr. Clay was gone, 
and his partizans hating Genl. Jackson and Mr. Van Buren as they 
did, would unite upon any man to put him out. They would even 
take him (Mr. C) with nullification on his head. (Judge Mar- 
tin 32 was in the room and heard this expression also.) In this 
state of affairs he thought best for the South to stand uncom- 
mitted on the Presidential question and to rally and concentrate 
her strength in pushing the principles for which she had been 
of late contending. He then spoke of the three great interests 
of the Nation, The North, The South and the West. They had 
been struggling in a fierce war with each other and he thought 
the period was approaching that was to determine whether they 
could be reconciled or not so as to perpetuate the Union. He 
was of opinion that they could. The interest of the North was 
a manufacturing and protecting one, that of the South Free 
Trade, and that of the West was involved in the distribution of 
the lands and Internal Improvements. How were they to be 

• 2 William D. Martin, whose term as M. C. had just expired. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 427 

reconciled? The West must have some visible appropriations to 
counter-balance those for the improvement of the Harbours, for- 
tifications &c of the Atlantic States, of which they were exceed- 
ingly jealous. And in the distribution of every acre of the 
public land they felt a deep solicitude. He would therefore 
gratify them with a system of internal improvements. And here 
he spoke fully and freely of his opinions on this subject. He 
said he had always doubted of the Constitutionality of Internal 
Improvements and that in all his Reports and Speeches on the 
subject, he had never once committed himself on the Constitu- 
tional ground. . . . Mr. Clay, he said, had seized upon In. Im. 
as a hobby and ridden it to death. Carried it much further 
than he ever intended to do and made it odious. In fact for the 
last five years, he said, he had seen that it would not do and had 
told his friends in Congress that the system, as carried on, must 
be arrested. Mr. Calhoun proposed to amend the Constitution 
for the purpose of making these In. Im. and to make the public 
lands the great fund to be set apart for that purpose. He did not 
agree with Mr. Hayne, in his project of giving these lands away, 
wh. would at once unsettle the whole landed property of the U. S. 
Nor did he think as well of Mr. Webster's plan of doling them 
away by littles to the people, thus constituting them a great 
gambling fund, for corrupt speculations. The advantages to the 
South from this system would be very great. By connecting the 
channels of the West with those to the Atlantic it would bring 
the trade at once to its point [port?] thro' the Southern States. 
He spoke of the Union of the Ohio and the Kenhawa wh. would 
make Virginia one state. Of the trade that would come to 
Charleston through the Saluda Gap wh. together with a rail-road 
from that city to Florence on the Tennessee River, and a canal 
thro' the cape of Florida would make it the great City of the 
South. The Free Trade System was that of the South and thus 
would she reap the advantages. He did not dwell upon this 
latter proposition, but showed that in this manner the interests of 
the West and South might readily be reconciled. But how was 
the North to be prevailed on to give up the protecting sys- 
tem? 

Mr. Calhoun said that he was for direct taxation ultimately, but 
at present he aimed only at reducing the Tariff down to the 
Revenue point — about Eleven or Twelve millions per annum, wh. 
would enable the government to pay the civil list handsomely. 



428 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

He said he was no radical in this and thought the government 
should be liberal in its constitutional expenditures. The Tariff 
at this point might be so adjusted as to suit the Northern people 
better than it did now. The general increase of duty on every 
article had diminished the profits of each individually by adding 
to the cost of every thing necessary to the production of each 
manufacturer. He would propose to single out some of the most 
important articles and giving them a liberal protection, enhance 
their profits still further by lowering the duties upon all (or) 
nearly all the other articles of necessary consumption. He said 
that the Northern manufacturers, if they took an extended view 
of things, must look to a foreign market and with that object it 
would be their desire and their most urgent interest, to cheapen 
everything in the country but their own peculiar manufactures. 
Taking this view of it, he thought the Northern people might 
easily be induced to lower the Tariff to the revenue point and 
thus reconcile the interests of the North and South. This is a 
pretty full view of Mr. Calhoun's plan of reconciliation. He 
thought it practicable — at all events worth trying. If it failed 
or matters continued going forward as they now did he looked 
upon disunion as inevitable. And he thought it best, for the 
system of plunder such as it was now was the most despicable of 
all possible forms of government. For his part he would not 
administer the government as it was now operating. He re- 
garded it as a despicable ambition. It would be administering 
an insolvent estate, — and one, said Judge Martin who had en- 
tered the room during our conversation, that would soon have to 
plead plene administravit. If things could be fixed upon the 
basis he proposed the government would be strengthened, and re- 
gain the confidence of the people. It would prevent the traffic 
of interests now carried on. In this game the North could beat 
us. We being the payer and they the receiver they could outbid 
us with the West and always wd. do it. 

When I started to come away Mr. Calhoun took his hat, and we 
walked together for some distance. He then hinted pretty 
strongly that if things went right, he might be placed in nomination 
for the Presidency next fall. I told him candidly that such a step 
would be imprudent at this moment both at home and abroad, and 
should not be thought of at this time. He agreed with me. He 
said his object was to throw himself entirely upon the South and if 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 429 

possible to be more Southern if possible [sic]. In advancing our 
principles therefore, we should advance him in the only way in 
wh. he desired to be advanced. 

This I believe is a correct outline of the long interesting inter- 
view wh. I had with Mr. Calhoun. To many of his projects I 
could not yield my assent, and his fine theory — if sound and re- 
publican — I fear will be found impracticable. 

I dined with Mr. Calhoun to-day at Judge D's and took tea 
with him at Major Taylor's. He is much less disposed to 
harangue than usual. There is a listlessness about him wh. 
shows that his mind is deeply engaged and no doubt that it is on 
the subject of the Presidency. He is unquestionably quite fever- 
ish under the present excitement and his hopes. 

Nearly three months later, on June 11, Hamilton in turn 
wrote as follows to Hammond from Charleston, — and his let- 
ter 33 shows clearly the same general tendencies on his part 
and the same inclination to be a little mistrustful of Calhoun's 
course : 

... I have seen with great regret the course which Green 34 
is pursuing towards us and Mr. Calhoun. He will ruin the 
latter if he is not checked. Green has certainly got into his head, 
I hope without Mr. Calhoun's sanction, that by compromising 
with the Manufacturers that he can be elected. Indeed Green 
has written me a long Epistle on the subject, holding out the most 
alluring probabilities of Mr. Calhoun's success and of the willing- 
ness of the Manufacturers to compromise with us on the prin- 
ciple of his speech in 181 6. I have replied very explicitly to him 
that in no shape lot or scot would we be included in the arrange- 
ment, that we would take no part in the presidential election and 
that I was quite sure that Mr. Calhoun's prospects were as hope- 
less as his ruin would be certain, if he was brought to give his 
countenance to such a compact. He also civilly asked if we were 
all crazy at McDufne's dinner [shortly to be mentioned"], if we 
intended to start into open rebellion and insure the empire of the 
wh — e of Washington (Mrs. E., I suppose). To these civil 
things my reply was brief and explicit. That . . . we should 
go on and abate not one jot of our zeal in the support of our 
principles, which we would sacrifice to the elevation of no man 

8 » Ibid., pp. 746, 747- 

"* Editor of the " U. S. Telegraph." 



430 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

on earth. That as for surrendering Nullification, which he 
kindly recommended, that this was as impossible as his proposed 
league between the Nullifiers and the Manufacturers which in 
itself was as practicable as a confederation between the Poles 
and the Cossacks. I have no doubt he moves in this matter with 
Calhoun's sanction. Mr. Calhoun has too much sense not to see 
the essential weakness of his occupying a double position, Janus 
faced, with one expression of countenance for one side of the 
Potomac and another expression for the other. . . . P. S. I en- 
closed Mr. Calhoun copies of Green's letter to me and my letter 
in reply, in order that he might see the whole ground. If G. 
continues this course we shall have to be even more explicit than 
we have been in the short editorial which Pinckney [of the 
Charleston Mercury] put forth a few Days since. 35 

Events were now moving fast. While McDufne was in 
Charleston in May a dinner was given him on the 19th, and 
the toasts, even more than his speech, were most outspoken for 
nullification. One of them read : 

" Nullification — The only rightful remedy of an injured 
State. In itself, peaceful and constitutional. It can never 
lead to Disunion or Civil War, unless an unjust Government 
should grow so bold in usurpation as to seal its tyranny with 
blood." 36 

It will have been observed that Green was inclined to think 
that everybody had been crazy on this occasion. On the other 
hand, some correspondent wrote a Philadelphia newspaper as 
follows in regard to McDufne's speech: 

Never have I listened to anything half so magnificent in elo- 
quence or half so powerful in argument. I have heard most of 
the great speakers of the United States, but could form no con- 
ception from their efforts, of such a display of " might of mind " 
and splendor of oratory as I listened to on this occasion. Indeed 
no words can convey to you an adequate idea of the electric power 

88 Probably referring to an editorial in tbe issue of June 9, which is, 
however, not very short but is aimed mainly against Green and the " U. 
S. Telegraph." Tt says that any compromise of Southern rights with the 
manufacturers is absolutely impossible. I could not find any later and 
more explicit warning. For many months later Green was still trying to 
secure the nomination of Calhoun: see infra. Vol. IT, pp. 222-226. 

89 The Charleston " Mercury," May 21, 1831. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 451 

with which his occasional bursts of indignation at our oppression 
swept with them the entranced feelings of his hearers. Yet the 
main current, and almost the entire stream of his argument, 
flowed on in a calm, clear, and dignified course of the most rigid 
and powerful logic to which I have ever listened. 37 

To this may be added that Hamilton wrote to Hammond : 

In the excellence of the tact which he displayed in adapting 
his speech to the crisis and the community in which it was deliv- 
ered, he was almost seemingly inspired. 38 

The Speech of McDuffie 39 was in great part an elaboration 
of the theory that our tariff laws operated " to impose a 
burthen upon the planters, as such, independent of the burthens 
they bear in common with all other classes, as the consumers 
of taxed articles." Various cases were put to illustrate his 
meaning, such as free tea on which a heavy tax is then laid, 
with the result that the consumer by no means pays such tax 
but buys less tea, so that the producer must either accept a lower 
price or at once greatly curtail production. Again, to show 
that the tariff was in effect an excise duty on exportation, he 
supposes two ships laden with cotton, and in all respects identi- 
cal, bound for Liverpool. One is, however, compelled to pay 
an export duty before sailing and can buy much less of a re- 
turn cargo; but the other ship starting home with a larger 
cargo (but subject to import duties) finds upon arrival that 
she is mulcted largely and is finally left in precisely the same 
condition as the first vessel. An illustration of essen- 
tially local flavor was that of three bakers in Charleston, — 
"one north of Broad Street." A tax is put on him alone 
and he assured the consumer will pay it, but sad experience 
soon demonstrates the contrary. 

Finally, coming down to Nullification, McDuffie said he was 
perfectly ready to concede that a State could not nullify an 
Act of Congress by virtue of any power derived from the 
Constitution (as some have strangely enough thought that 

37 Quoted in the "National Intelligencer" of June 7. i^ 1 - 
88 " Nullification in South Carolina, 1830-34," "American Historical Re- 
view," Vol. VT ( 1900-01 ). p. 746. 

30 Reprinted in the "National Intelligencer" of June 7, 1831, probably 
from the Charleston " Mercury " of May 35. 



432 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

Calhoun argued) : " it would be a perfect solecism to suppose 
any such power was conferred by the Constitution. The 
right flows from a higher source." 40 And in answer to the 
talk of treason and threats of consequent war and tumult, he 
burst out : 

" Shall we be terrified by mere phantoms of blood, when 
our ancestors, for less cause, encountered the dreadful reality? 
Great God! are we the descendants of those ancestors? Are 
we freemen — are we men — grown men — to be frightened 
from the discharge of our most sacred duty, and the vindication 
of our most sacred rights, by the mere nursery story of raw 
head and bloody bones, which even the women of our country 
laugh to scorn? The idea of bloodshed and civil war, in a 
contest of this kind, is utterly ridiculous "... One can to 
some extent imagine the scene when told that McDuffie' s ges- 
ticulation was at times so violent that a hearer once asked her 
neighbor whether his fists would not " fly off and hit some- 
body." 41 

It may be surmised that this dinner to McDuffie was ar- 
ranged by Hamilton and Hammond and their friends for the 
very purpose of precipitating Nullification. It was given at 
the same time when, as has been seen, they thought Calhoun 
quite too slow, and Hamilton's already quoted admiration 
of the speech is quite consistent with his having had a part in 
arranging for its delivery. Beyond doubt, the mine for Nul- 
lification was fired on that 19th day of May. 

Calhoun was very much displeased at the whole occurrence 

40 It has been maintained from these words that McDuffie was not at 
heart a nullifier, but I can attribute no such meaning to them. The last 
short sentence quoted seems on the contrary, to establish conclusively that 
in his opinion the right did exist. His words as to a perfect solecism are 
probably what has led to the conclusion on the part of some, but the ex- 
pression only states what every nullifier would have admitted and even 
have insisted on. They all maintained that the right arose from the 
surrounding circumstances and not at all from the constitution. It is 
plain, however, that McDuffie was, at least at an early date, not enamored 
of the remedy and doubted its efficacy. O'Neall writes ("Bench and Bar," 
Vol. II, p. 466) that he knew from a conversation with McDuffie in Decem- 
ber, 1830, that he had no faith in " Nullification as a peaceable and Constitu- 
tional measure. He believed in revolution as the only measure of re- 
dress." 

« losiah Quincy's " Figures of the Past," p. 283, as cited in Houston'* 
"Nullification," p. 37. 







Fac-simii.e of Letter of John C. Calhoun 
Vol. I, p. 432 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 433 

and at the crisis in South Carolina's course which it precipi- 
tated. Small wonder, too, in view of the presidential hopes 
he expressed at nearly the same time in the letter of May 25 to 
Van Deventer, already quoted. Green, too (so Calhoun adds) , 
was in " embarrassment and distress " at the matter, and Ing- 
ham wrote Calhoun, evidently to the same effect. To the 
latter Calhoun replied on June 16 that "the occurrence in 
Charleston to me was wholly unexpected. ... I think it every 
way imprudent, and have so written to Hamilton. I see clearly 
it brings matters to a crisis ; and that I must meet it, promptly 
and manfully. I intended to wait for Mr. Crawford's move 
[ ?] on me, so as to have the great advantage of acting on the 
defensive " ; and then he sketches his plan of a letter to a 
near-by home newspaper, very much as it appeared in July. 

During all this time the political struggle in South Carolina 
between the Nullifiers and Unionists was seething. On July 4, 
183 1, monster meetings were held in Charleston by both parties, 
and there was no little danger of violence. Hayne, possibly 
called upon for the purpose 42 with Calhoun's consent, now that 
the contest was evidently unavoidable, put Nullification forth 
definitely as his party's policy. His address 43 seems to bear 
evidence that he was not highly enamored of the remedy, and 
perhaps not thoroughly conversant with all the refinements of 
the doctrine, and he more than once emphasizes the fact that it 
was chosen because it was short of disunion. No one can, I 
think, read the address without feeling, what every known ut- 
terance of Hayne bears out, that he was deeply devoted to 
the Union and most anxious for some means of preserving it. 
at the same time that he was, — pro aris et focis, — engaged 
in the excentric Nullification contest. The sacred fanes of 
home and their defense were, in his associates' eyes, their very 
highest duty on earth. 

"What then, my countrymen," he said, after reviewing 
the history of the matter, " remains to be done? Are you for 
submission? No! That is impossible. What then? Shall 
we dissolve the Union? God forbid. . . . [Retreat is impos- 

42 Tervey's " Hayne," p. 287. 

43 Pamphlet in Charleston Library Society. 



434 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

sible. You must advance. Should all arguments fail and only 
the alternative be left of submission or] the interposition of 
the sovereign authority of the State, I say with Mr. Jefferson 
' there ought to be no hesitation.' But this we are told 
will be Nullification. Be it so. When nullification shall be 
our only means of deliverance from this oppression, who is 
there that would not be a nullifierf . . . We will take any 
remedy that may be proposed to us, short of disunion, . . . 
call it Nullification or call it what you will. ... By Nulli- 
fication, then, we understand nothing more than such an inter- 
position of State sovereignty, as may be effectual for the pres- 
ervation of State Rights. ... I consider Nullification by a 
State, therefore, simply as a high act of sovereignty, by which 
she makes known to her sister States that she deems her con- 
stitutional rights violated in so essential a particular that she 
cannot consent to submit to the violation ... it brings about 
a crisis, but it is no dissolution of the Union. . . . Nullifica- 
tion, as I understand it, consists in no particular act. It is . . . 
the rendering an act, which she deems unconstitutional, null, 
void, and of no force within her limits, . . . We have been 
charged with being enemies to the Union. In the indignant 
spirit of insulted patriotism, you have, in the face of the 
world, and with one voice, hurled back the slander on the 
heads of its propagators. For myself (and I know I may 
say the same for you), I speak in the perfect sincerity of my 
heart when I declare my entire devotion to the Union. To 
preserve it I would do all that may become a patriot, who 
would do more is none." 44 He closed with the well-known 
words of the X Y Z episode, which were inscribed on a 
flag then presented, " Millions for defense, but not one cent for 
tribute." 

The Union meeting of the same date was perhaps chiefly 

44 In his speech at the Charleston Dinner of July 4, 1830, to himself 
and Drayton, Hayne had said, what not every Charlestonian of that day 
could have said : " For my single self, I am free to declare that I cherish 
a sincere and ardent devotion to the Union, and that to preserve it in- 
violate, I would willingly lay down my life." He closed with a splendid 
and moving flight of eloquence as to all his ties heing with South Carolina 
and that hy her he would stand. Niles's " Register," Vol. XXXVIII. p. 
380. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 435 

noteworthy for the letter of Jackson, in which the President 
came out distinctly against the Nullifiers, and aimed to soothe 
the Unionists' well-known opposition to the tariff by the 
honeyed words that their " patriotic efforts . . . cannot be 
forwarded more effectually than by inculcating a reliance on the 
justice of the National Councils, and pointing to the fast ap- 
proaching extinction of the public debt as an event which 
must necessarily produce modification in the revenue system, 
by which all interests, under a spirit of mutual accommodation 
and concession, will be probably 45 protected." More impor- 
tant to us here, however, was one of the toasts aimed directly 
at Calhoun and evidently designed to force a complete an- 
nouncement of his position. It read : 

" The Vice-President of the United States : His political 
intimates have declared their sentiments on Nullification, — 
will he shrink from an open exposition of his own? ' 

Whatever may have been Calhoun's secret wishes and hesi- 
tations, the hint of Judge Richardson's pamphlet of 1830, 
this sharp jibe of the Unionists, McDuffie's speech and the 
seething caldron of the political struggle, made silence impos- 
sible any longer. It was announced in the Pendleton Mes- 
senger 47 of July 27, 1 83 1, that he would soon " place his senti- 
ments before the public without reserve " in reference to Nul- 
lification, and his well-known letter 48 of July 26 was printed 
in that paper's next issue (August 3). It was outspoken 
enough for any one and put him absolutely with the Nullifiers, 
on the basis of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, the 
Report of Madison in Virginia and the decision of the Supreme 
Court of Pennsylvania in Cobbett's case. Thus he formulated 
the primordial principle of our system : 

The great and fundamental distinction is that the General Gov- 

45 This word ought presumably to be " properly," but the reading in the 
text is Riven both in Capers's " Memminger " and in the contemporary 
Niles (Vol. XL, p. 351). 

46 H. D. Capers's "Life and Times of C. G. Memminger, pp. 37-105, 
43. Jervev's " Hayne," pp. 200, 291. , 

< T The Charleston " Courier," August 4 and 11, 1831. See also 40 Niles s 
"Register" (July 23, 1831), p. 361. . 

*8" Works," Vol. VI, pp. 50-04. Niles's "Register" (August 20, 1831), 

Vol. XL, pp.' 437-45- 



436 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

ernment emanated from the people of the several States, forming 
distinct political communities, and acting in their separate and 
sovereign capacity, and not from all of the people forming one 
aggregate political community. . . . This right of [State] inter- 
position ... I conceive to be the fundamental principle of our 
system, resting on facts historically as certain as our revolution 
itself, and deductions as simple and demonstrative as that of any 
political or moral truth whatever ; and I firmly believe that on its 
recognition depend the stability and safety of our political insti- 
tutions. ... I yield to none, I trust, in a deep and sincere at- 
tachment to our political institutions and the union of these 
States. I never breathed an opposite sentiment. . . . 

Later on in the letter, the subject of the tariff was argued 
again, without material change from what he had written in 
the " Exposition," but with the more pronounced conclusion 
that " were there no exports, there would l^e no tariff." And 
the curious reader, fond of tracing the evolution of thought, 
or rather of expression, will find here a further development 
of that principle which Calhoun came soon to call the doc- 
trine of the "concurrent majorities," and which had been 
touched upon in the Exposition. The exact name 49 is still 
wanting, but the whole idea is there, as it had indeed been in 
numbers of governments of modern days as well as of anti- 
quity. Calhoun only analyzed and explained the matter, giv- 
ing it a name and showing clearly enough its existence in our 
system. He usually led up to the subject by arguing the 
tyranny of a mere numerical majority. 

Calhoun evidently appreciated the importance to himself of 
this step, and in sending copies of the letter to Van Deventer 
and Gouverneur wrote of the great doubt in regard to how 
it would be received at the North. " I can scarcely hope for 
the concurrence of my northern friends," so he wrote the latter 
and added in a second letter, " I know I am right. I have 

49 In the Address to the People of South Carolina, which he prepared 
for the legislative session of November-December, 1831, he uses the term 
"compounded majority," "Works," Vol. VI, p. 136. "Concurring ma- 
jorities" first appears in the letter to Governor Hamilton of August 28, 
1832, " Works," Vol. VI, pp. 152. 181. In his later writings, "concurrent ^ 
is always used. See his "Disquisition on Government," passim. Works, 
Vol. I, pp. 1-107. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 437 

gone over the whole subject, with more care, than I ever 
did any other ; and feel that I cannot be mistaken." 50 

Can the sincerity of this man be doubted? He was human 
and perhaps mistaken, but struggling to find a remedy for what 
he and every South Carolinian to a man believed to be great 
wrongs to his home and his neighbors, he took up and greatly 
elaborated a theory of our Government as old as our birth 
and never quite abandoned, and then is charged with having 
done so because of political disappointment. It has already 
been shown that his new views were formed by him and that 
many knew of them, long before there was cause for disap- 
pointment, and recent pages have shown that he several times 
hesitated and held back from the final plunge, well knowing its 
serious effects on his ambition. 

The South Carolina Legislature met again in November, 
1 83 1. Many subjects of importance were to come before it. 
Calhoun had, presumably at the request of some members, 
prepared for the session two papers, 51 — a Report and an Ad- 
dress, — but neither was used, and one of them at least was 
said to have been " suppressed, greatly to his mortification 
and indignation." Perhaps, as with the " Exposition," por- 
tions of them were thought too ultra, or injudicious under the 
circumstances. 

In regard to the tariff, the Legislature resolved shortly that 

50 " Correspondence," pp. 296-300 ; and see p. 302. 

51 Report prepared for the Committee on Federal Relations of the 
Legislature of South Carolina, at its session in November, 1831 ("Works," 
Vol. VI, pp. 94-123), and Address to the People of South Carolina pre- 
pared for the members of the Legislature at the close of the session of 1831 
(ibid., pp. 124-144). R. B. Rhett wrote Cralle in 1854, saying that Cralle 
ought to include in the Works he was editing Calhoun's " Addresses to the 
People of the United States and of South Carolina. He wished to have 
them put forth. They were read to the South Carolina delegation in Con- 
gress to obtain their judgment upon them. They were suppressed, and 
greatly to his mortification and indignation." " R. B. Rhett on the Biog- 
raphy of Calhoun, 1854 " ; by Gaillard Hunt in " American Historical Re- 
view," 1907-8, Vol. XIII, pp. 310-12. Rhett's words doubtless refer in part 
to the above cited " Address to the People of South Carolina," but perhaps 
not to the Report for the Committee on Federal Relations, which (though 
it was equally not used) is not at all in the form of an address. His 
letter is dated some 22 years after the event, and it may be that by the 
" Address to the People of the United States " he meant the paper that 
Calhoun wrote for the Nullification Convention a year later. " Works," 
Vol. VI, pp. 193-209, and see infra, pp. 448, 449. 



438 LIFE OF JOHN C CALHOUN 

" their opinion is unchanged," while Jackson's letter to the 
July 4 meeting of the Union party, was attacked as " an un- 
authorized interference in the affairs of this State " ; " Is 
this Legislature to be schooled and rated by the President of 
the United States? " they asked. But they also found reason 
to resolve " we regard with high gratification the sentiment ex- 
pressed in his late message that the tariff ought to be reduced 
to the wants of Government." 52 These words refer of course 
to the presidential message of December, 1831, which omitted 
for the first time all reference to the distribution of the sur- 
plus and did recommend, as soon as the debt should be paid, 
a reduction of the tariff " to the wants of Government and an 
adjustment of the duties on imports with a view to equal justice 
in relation to all our national interests." 

Jackson was much pleased with this move on his part and 
wrote Van Buren, on November 14, 53 in regard to the draft 
of his intended message and particularly this clause, which, he 
said, " will annihilate the nullifiers as they will be left without 
any pretext of complaint." The South Carolinians seem to 
have been more sincere and not to have been playing politics, 
for we are told that for a time after this utterance they once 
more had hopes of relief, without Nullification. 54 

The administration and not a few of the leaders were evi- 
dently in favor of real reductions, and we are told on good au- 
thority 53 that " the anxious wish of the administration is to 
make a compromise in relation to the tariff," or again, as 
Livingston expressed it, 5c that a measure to compromise the 
tariff would " win Jackson's heart." Adams, too, who had 
just re-entered the political field in that sphere where his real 
reputation was destined to be made and who was chairman of 
the House Committee on Manufactures, told his associates that 

62 South Carolina Laws, 1831, pp. 28 and 57. 

53 Van Buren Collection, in Library of Congress. 

84 Calhoun's "Autobiography," p. 41. 

55 James A. Hamilton's Reminiscences," p. 243. 

56 " Life of Charles J. Ingersoll," by William M. Meigs, p. 175- Inger- 
soll was in Washington in February and March of 1832; and had several 
conferences with Livingston, chiefly in regard to the bank. They talked 
of a plan to introduce as administration measures, bills to re-charter the 
bank with modifications (which latter seem to have been both shown to 
Jackson and agreed to by him) and to compromise the tariff. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 439 

he " became from day to day more fully convinced that this 
system of minimums must be abandoned, or there would be an 
insurrection in the South." He sounded Webster on this 
point, but found no encouragement. 57 

South Carolinians, both Unionists and Nullifiers, were pres- 
ent in Washington and active in this late struggle of the long 
contest. Poinsett was there, and wrote his friend Judge Hop- 
kinson on February 9 : 5S 

I am here begging that something may be done to pacify the 
south, but doubt if I shall succeed. Both parties are obstinate. 
I think it probable that Congress will not act definitely upon 
either of the great questions before them but postpone both 
Bank and Tariff bills. Van Buren's rejection has thrown the 
camp into great confusion. His friends now wish to have him 
nominated for the Vice Presidency. 

A bill making reductions was ere long brought in by Mc- 
Duffie from the Ways and Means Committee, which seems 
almost to have been an answer to a memorial from the members 
of the South Carolina Legislature opposed to Nullification. 
Drayton had presented this memorial early in the session. In 
it the Unionists said they 

. . . Are exceedingly aggrieved by the laws of the United 
States, imposing high duties on foreign merchandise for the pro- 
tection of manufactures ; the evils under which South Carolina is 
suffering are obvious and alarming; the great depreciation of 
cotton, the chief staple of her soil has reduced the profits to 
which the planters have long been accustomed, to such a degree, 
that the culture, yielding no longer an adequate compensation 
for their labor, is continued merely from necessity ; at the same 
time her citizens are exorbitantly taxed on all the articles of for- 
eign growth or production that enter into their consumption. If 
other causes conspire to reduce the income of her citizens, it is 
the tariff alone which denies them the right of converting that 
reduced income into such an amount of the necessaries or con- 
veniences of life as would certainly be at their command under 
the revenue system of moderate duties. These difficulties, 

57 " Memoirs," Vol. VTIT, pp. 494, 499. 

" Hopkinson Letters, in possession of Edward Hopkinson, Esq., of 
Philadelphia. 



440 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

though great, might be tolerated, if the burden was equal ; but 
they are greatly aggravated by the consideration that the benefits 
of the tariff are confined to the manufacturing States, and that 
South Carolina feels with severity the weight of the protecting 
system, but receives no part of the compensation. . . . Your 
memorialists, who fully concur with their fellow-citizens in their 
opposition to the tariff are of that party who regard nullification 
as utterly unconstitutional. 59 

Besides these efforts, J. A. Hamilton writes 60 that Louis 
McLane, Secretary of the Treasury, said he would " furnish a 
bill in that spirit which ought to be passed," and Baldwin's 
proposal is well known. Roughly speaking, the latter reduced 
the duties on all importations to 20 per cent. It was shown 
to Hayne and McDuffie who wanted it brought forward but 
did not say they would be satisfied. 61 

All these efforts came to nought. The protected interests 
had the power and could not be forced to let go their grasp on 
the system they had enacted. Further pressure and a more 
vivid sense of the serious nature of the impending conflict were 
necessary. The National Intelligencer soon saw more clearly, 
and wrote in the summer of 1832 with special reference to the 
closing words of Calhoun's letter to Governor Hamilton, 02 

Our readers East, West and North may judge from this lan- 
guage ... to what extent the views of the prevailing party in 
South Carolina go. But they cannot be made to comprehend the 
deep excitement, and the spirit of self-devotion, which urge them 
towards a practical application of their doctrine. 93 

Calhoun foresaw from early in the session that little would 

50 Congressional Debates. Vol. VTIT, Part 2, 1831-32. pp. 1610. 1620. Not 
enough praise has been awarded the Unionists of South Carolina for 
their brave and high-minded course. Agreeing absolutely with the Nulli- 
fiers as to the main issue of the tariff, they yet persistently, and despite 
being a very decided minority, struggled to the end against the only 
remedy which was proposed, because of their devotion to the Union. And 
they suffered for their course in almost every way in which a minority 
can be made to suffer. 

60 " Reminiscences." p. 243. 

«J. Q. Adams's "Memoirs," Vol. VIII. p. 482. 

r ' 2 Quoted infra, p. 446. 

63 Quoted in Niles's "Register," Vol. XLII, p. 373. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 441 

be done with the tariff and wrote more than one correspondent 
to about the following effect : 

As far as I can judge from indications, the result will be the 
repeal of the taxes and the retention of the bounties ; that is the 
duties will be retained on all articles the North can manufacture, 
and be repealed on all others. The burden will it is true be 
diminished, but the inequality be increased; it will be taken off 
the North and left on the South ; off the rich and left on the 
poor. 64 

This was not an unfair description of the tariff law of that 
session, which received the President's approval on July 14. 
Its chief advantage to the South was that it did away with 
the minimums. The new statute was soon pronounced by re- 
sponsible leaders, — Clay of the opposition, as well as the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, — to be a final adjustment of the tariff 
and the permanent system of revenue, after payment of the 
debt. 65 

Hayne and numbers of the South Carolina leaders looked 
upon the law in one sense in the same light, and it was clearly 
the means which finally drove them to the conclusion that it 
was impossible to delay further the action they had so long been 
threatening. Eight of their delegation united in a letter, bear- 
ing date the day (July 13) preceding the act's approval and 
addressed to the People of South Carolina, in which they re- 
viewed the history of our tariff system and added that they 
Would not pretend to suggest the remedy. But their opinion 
was made clear enough at the end, when, after expressing a 
solemn conviction " that all hope of relief from Congress is 
irrevocably gone, they leave it with you, the sovereign power 
of the State, to determine whether the rights and liberties 
which you received as a precious inheritance from an illus- 
trious ancestry, shall be tamely surrendered without a strug- 
gle, or transmitted undiminished to your posterity." 66 

64 Letter of December 27, 1831, to Armistead Burt, " Correspondence," 
p. 307; see, also, pp. 306, 313, 317, 3*9- 

05 Calhoun's " Autobiography," pp. 41, 42. Taussig's " Tariff History," 
pp. 103-105, 109, no. 

66 "The National Intelligencer" of July 31, 1832, reprints this letter 
" from the Charleston papers." It was signed by Hayne, Stephen D. 



442 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

A few other events of about this period must be mentioned. 
Sporadic efforts looking to some other course than Nullifica- 
tion were still apparently making in South Carolina. Cal- 
houn's brother-in-law conceived a plan for some application 
to Congress which should lead to a convention of the States. 
This was in December, 1831, and Calhoun wrote in reply that, 
at the proper stage of action, the design might have been the 
best, but he thought the period had " passed to make applica- 
tion in any form to Congress." Nothing further seems to have 
been done in the matter than to write about it to Calhoun and 
James Hamilton, Jr. 

On January 25, 1832, the nomination of Van Buren as Min- 
ister to England was rejected in the Senate by Calhoun's cast- 
ing vote. The Vice-President seems to have thought this 
would end Van Buren's career, and the story told by Benton 67 
is well known, how he heard Calhoun say to a friend " It will 
kill him, sir, kill him dead. He will never kick, sir, never 
kick." Very different was the actual result, and in two days 
Jackson was writing 68 that the feeling was universal to nomi- 
nate Van Buren by acclamation for Vice-President. In less 
than two weeks, Calhoun himself wrote that " the partisans of 
Mr. Van Buren will make the most desperate effort to force him 
into the V. Presidency but judging from indications, I am of 
the impression, they will fail." e9 As is well known, they by 
no means failed, and the rejection seems to have been a serious 
error on the part of Calhoun and others, and to show a lack 
of appreciation of the generally sound sense of the public, 
which at once felt that the step was but a move of rival poli- 
ticians. Hayne disapproved of the action, thinking it would 
help to advance Van Buren, 70 and it has been seen that Poin- 

Miller, McDuffie, Warren R. Davis, John M. Felder, John R. Griffin, W. T. 
Nickolls, and Robert W. Barnwell. Drayton, Blair, and Mitchell, the 
remaining members, were strong Unionists and would, of course, not 
sign, but it is not clear why the Unionist Felder joined. 

07 " View," Vol. I, p. 219. Benton says (ibid., p. 215) that, when the 
vote was declared, he, on the other hand, said to a member near him : 
" You have broken a minister, and elected a Vice-President." 

08 J. A. Hamilton's " Reminiscences," p. 237. 

69 " Correspondence," p. 310. 

70 Jervey's " Hayne," pp. 494-496. The unbridled pen of Randolph wrote 
that the part which "the thrice double ass," Calhoun, had played in the 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 443 

sett thought it had a disorganizing influence and contributed 
to the impossibility of securing a real reduction of the 
tariff. 

Most great movements are to some extent met by satire, and 
Nullification was no exception. Early in 1832 "The Book of 
Nullification " was published anonymously in Charleston, — a 
work that contained some account of the events of the day in 
biblical form and language. In its ten chapters, Nullification 
was a graven image which John the Conjuror had promised to 
cast for the people, telling them that it should be set up in 
Convention; but in a rash moment Robert the Nullifier 
(Hayne) exposed it to view at an earlier date in Congress, 
whereupon Daniel (Webster) smote it and hurled it to earth. 
The idol was put together again with much difficulty by John 
the Conjuror (who was of course Calhoun), and hidden away 
carefully, with the intention of bringing it out to view in Con- 
vention. But Convention was lost in 1830 and the satire was 
published not long before its success two years later. 

Of the characters, John the King and Andrew the King are 
at once easily identified, while McDuffie figures as George the 
Prophet ; Hayne, as Robert the Nullifier, and James Hamilton, 
Jr., becomes James the Deluded. Robert the Englishman was 
Robert J. Turnbull or " Brutus," while Thersites was, of 
course, the loose-tongued and ultra Thomas Cooper. The sar- 
casm of the paper is said to have excited much attention, nor 
was it long before the author was known to be C. G. Mem- 
minger, 71 then but a modest young lawyer, but destined later 
in life to play a part on the Southern side in the tragedy of 
the Civil War. 

Meanwhile, the bitter feeling against the Federal Govern- 
ment had grown rapidly in South Carolina. A ' Disunion 
Drama" had been performed at Beaufort, and early in 1831 
a State Rights Ball was held in Charleston, at which the 

matter had made it "as easy for Benedict Arnold to get the vote of Vir- 
ginia as for him" (Calhoun). Letter to Jackson quoted in Ambler's 
" Ritchie," p ; 145, or Randolph, March 16, 1832, to Jackson in the Jackson 
papers in Library of Congress. 

71 "The Life and Times of C. G. Memminger," by Henry D. Capers, 
p. 107, and " Appendix," pp. 569-599. 



444 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

United States flag formed no part of the decoration. 72 Disun- 
ion dinners, too, are said to have been eaten in almost every 
hamlet in the State. 73 And it must always be remembered 
that, except as to such separatist outbursts as these and as 
to the remedy proposed of Nullification, the State was prac- 
tically a unit. Every South Carolinian, almost to a man, 74 
believed that his section was grievously injured by the tariff 
laws. The Unionists, as has been seen, in numerous instances 
emphasized their agreement with the opposite party as to 
this point, even while denouncing and bitterly opposing Nulli- 
fication. Doubtless, the leaders had to do this in order to hold 
their following together. 

The agitation went on, too, in other ways quite as serious 

72 Niles's " Register," Vol. XLV, p. 107. Some account of such a ball 
in 1833 may be found in Jervey's " Hayne," pp. 357-61. 

73 " South Carolina during the Nullification Struggle," by Gaillard Hunt, 
in "Political Science Quarterly," Vol. VI (1891), pp. 236, 241. 

74 Even the strong Unionist Petigru was of this opinion, in spite of his 
intense opposition to the Nullifiers, as the earlier sentences of the follow- 
ing from one of his speeches amply show : " That the tariff of protective 
duties ought never to have been passed ; that it is contrary to the spirit 
of amity and concession in which the Constitution was conceived, and 
in which the government ought to be exercised, I freely admit ; that it 
is injurious to the South I firmly believe, but that it is unconstitutional 
I wholly deny ; and that it is ruinous in its operations, is no more than 
a rhetorical flourish." Quoted in Houston's " Nullification," p. 101, from 
Capers's " Memminger," p. 61. The following incident shows, the same 
unanimity. In 183 1, two Charleston lawyers, Holmes and Mazyck, im- 
ported goods and gave bond but refused to pay, in order to lead to suit. 
The U. S. District Attorney at the time refused to proceed, however, on 
the ground that the tariff law was unconstitutional ; whereupon Jackson 
removed him, and suit was brought by his successor. On the trial, the 
Court declined to receive any evidence other than of the execution of the 
bond, so the question of unconstitutionality could not be raised. Judg- 
ment accordingly went against the defendants, but upon a levy on a house 
of one of them and an offer of it at public sale, it was bought in by a 
State Rights man, and he refused to comply with his bid " on the ground 
of the unconstitutionality of the laws." When it was then put up again 
on account of and at the risk of this purchaser, " not a single bid could 
be obtained." It does not appear that further proceedings were at any 
time taken against the bidder ("The National Intelligencer" of No- 
vember 17, 1832, quoting the Charleston "Mercury"; Hunt's "South 
Carolina," etc., ' ut supra, pp. 242, 243; The Charleston "Courier" of July 
30, 1831). I made inquiries with the view of tracing the history of this 
case, but found that the records of the U. S. District Court previous to 
the Civil War have been destroyed or removed. The judgment- roll book 
remains, however, and contains an entry of " Satisfied " on the judgment 
against Holmes and Mazyck, without showing the date of satisfaction. 
The conclusion to be drawn from this is not, I think, very certain. 






THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 445 

as the drama or social gatherings. On February 22, 1832, 
a Convention of Delegates of the State Rights and Free Trade 
Associations of South Carolina met in pursuance of notice at 
the Circus in Charleston. Several largely-attended meetings 
were held by them and an address issued, which distinctly ad- 
vocated resistance and urged that their doctrines should be 
taught by tract and otherwise. 75 One other event of nearly 
the same period must be mentioned. 

The Nullifiers had persistently maintained that Jefferson 
was the author of the Kentucky Resolutions, both of 1798 and 
1799, in which latter occur the words: "A nullification by 
these sovereignties [the several States] of all unauthorized acts, 
done under colour of that instrument [the constitution], is 
the rightful remedy." This assertion had been as stoutly de- 
nied on the other side, for Jefferson's name at that date still 
carried great weight. Among others, Ritchie 70 of the Rich- 
mond Enquirer, whose paper was a leading organ of the De- 
mocracy, had maintained that Jefferson could not be associated 
with the doctrine. Madison, too, had at about this time ap- 
peared in the public prints to deny that his language in the 
Virginia proceedings furnished any precedent for the South 
Carolina doctrine of the day. 77 

The question as to Madison's early views had to be solved 
from the language he had used, with the help of his more recent 
explanations, while every effort was made by Ritchie and 
doubtless others to ferret out the truth as to Jefferson. Fi- 
nally, Ritchie was shown by Jefferson's grandson a small man- 

" The Charleston "Mercury," February 20 and 27, 1832; Houston's 
" Nullification," p. 105. 

76 Ritchie, as appears in other parts of this book, was altogether an 
opponent of Nullification. He wrote Wm. C. Rives on December 6, 1832, 
of Jackson's then recent message that " his tone about South Carolina 
is precisely what it should be." The John Branch Historical Papers 
of Randolph-Macon College, Vol. Ill, p. 211. 

"Madison's chief letter on the subject was to Edward Everett ( Madi- 
son's "Works," 1851, Vol. IV, pp. 95-107). as dated August, 1830, and 
was shortly published in the " North American Review." Numerous other 
like letters are to be found in his works passim, extending over several 
years. Benton ("View," Vol. I, pp. 354"6o) reproduces parts of these 
which he says, had been "recently put into print" by the liberality of a 
citizen of Washington. On the question of Madison's real opinions in 
1789-99, see ante, p. 379, foot-note. 



446 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

uscript book in which were found in Jefferson's own hand- 
writing two drafts (one very greatly altered and the other a 
fair copy), the latter 01 which was evidently the original of 
the Kentucky Resolutions of 1799, with the clause using the 
word " nullification." Ritchie at once recognized that he had 
been in error and published his discovery in the Enquirer of 
March 13, 1832. 78 And, when we recall how recent Jefferson 
then was and what a weight his name still carried, no one need 
hesitate to believe Calhoun's statement 70 that " supported by 
this high and explicit authority, the State Rights party moved 
forward with renovated energy and confidence in preparing 
for the great issue." 

During the following summer, when the time for the election 
was coming on apace, Calhoun contributed another paper to 
the discussion, in his letter of August 26, 1832, to Governor 
Hamilton, 80 which perhaps presents the Nullifiers' reasons in 
their strongest light. Parts are indeed of terrible force, but 
it is impossible to reproduce here it and the hundred other 
instances in which Calhoun's mind wrought out his thoughts 
on this subject with perhaps too clear a pure logic. The con- 
cluding sentences, however, must be quoted, for they show the 
sincerity of the author, and show, too, with pathetic plainness, 
the mistaken view which he held as to the future of the doc- 
trines he was advocating. He wrote : 

I believe the cause to be the cause of truth and justice, of 
union, liberty, and the Constitution, before which the ordinary 
party struggles of the day sink into perfect insignificance; and 
that it will be so regarded by the most distant posterity, I have 
not the slightest doubt. 

This letter to Hamilton and the thousand other arguments 

78 These facts are all set forth in Calhoun's " Autobiography," pp. 42, 
43; and the discovery of Jefferson's draft referred to in a letter of Duff 
Green to R. K. Cralle, dated March 12, 1832. Green Papers in Library 
of Congress. Mr. Warfield ("The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798," PP- 
135. 136, 151, 152) objects that Jefferson's draft is not absolutely identical 
with the Resolutions adopted, but why should it be? Some alterations 
by Breckenridge in Kentucky are highly likely, but the use of the word 
nullification in both, with the other facts, seems proof enough. 

™ Calhoun's " Autobiography," p. 43- 

so " Works," Vol. VI, pp. I44-I93- 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 447 

that had been and still were advanced had their effect upon 
the mind of a public eager for any mode of escape from the 
ills they were suffering, and when the election 81 came to be 
held on October 8, 1832, the Nullifiers had a majority of about 
6,000 in a total poll of but 40,000 s2 and it was well known 
that they had secured the necessary two-thirds vote in the Leg- 
islature. On the day of the election Calhoun wrote to 
Maxcy : 83 

Our election takes place to-day. The State Rights party will 
triumph by a large majority. A convention of the state will cer- 
tainly be called and the act nullified ; but every movement will be 
made with the view of preserving the Union. The end aimed at 
will be a General Convention of all the States, in order to adjust 
all constitutional differences and thus restore general harmony. 

It seems 84 that the popular vote in favor of Nullification was 
about evenly divided between the up-country and the lower. 

A special session of the Legislature was called by Governor 
Hamilton 85 to meet on October 22nd, and on the 26th an act 
was passed by more than the necessary two-thirds majority 
to call a Convention of the people of the State. 86 At the elec- 
tion held for this purpose, the Unionists, already badly de- 
feated in the election for the Legislature, made but little effort, 

81 It was said that there was on this occasion some violence and kid- 
napping of voters, etc., Niles's " Register," Vol. XLIII, p. 205. Petigru 
wrote Legare that he and his friends had to arm themselves, and that 
blows were aimed at him and Drayton and Poinsett struck. Letter of 
October 29, 1832, printed in Joseph Blyth Allston's " Life and Times of 
James L. Petigru " in the Charleston " Sunday News," January 21 to 
June 17, 1900; see issue of May 27. 

82 Houston's " Nullification," p. 107, citing DeBow's " Political Annals of 
South Carolina." 1845, p. 39. The Charleston_ " Mercury's " partly esti- 
mated returns indicated a majority of 8,ooo, in a poll of about 45,000. 
Niles's "Register," Vol. XLIII, p. 149. 

83 Maxcy-Markoe Collection in Library of Congress. 

84 Wm. A. Schaper's " Sectionalism and Representation in South Caro- 
lina," printed in " Annual Report of American Historical Association " 
(1900) Vol. I, pp. 443, 444. Other writers have thought differently, but 
Mr. Schaper's conclusion is based on a very careful investigation. 

85 Petigru wrote Legare on December 21, 1832: "The election was 
hardly declared before Jack Irvine got upon a table at the door of the 
State House and read the Governor's proclamation calling the Legislature." 
Allston's "Life" in the Charleston " Sunday News," issue of May 27, 1832. 

8a " Laws of South Carolina, 1834." The news of the passage of this 
law was followed by a discharge of cannon at the doors of the State 
Hall, Niles's " Register," Vol. XLIII, p. 175. 



448 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

and of the 162 members chosen they secured but 26. 87 The 
body so elected, — the famous Nullification Convention, — met 
at Columbia on November 19th, 1832, and at once appointed a 
Select Committee of 21 to consider and report upon the matters 
before them. The majority party was evidently full of tri- 
umph and the Mercury of November 22 contained a letter from 
an enthusiastic correspondent, announcing that " the knell of 
submission is rung." 

The Select Committee, in its report, reviewed shortly the his- 
tory of the tariff laws, and of the constant efforts made in the 
State against them since 1820, and then announced the " solemn 
truth " that " after more than ten years patient endurance of 
a system " believed by our people to be fatal to their pros- 
perity and plainly unconstitutional, a crisis had come at which 
it must be determined whether it is in the power of the State 
to do anything to redress the evil. They reported two Ad- 
dresses, — one to the People of South Carolina, written by 
Turnbull, and the other to the People of Massachusetts, etc., 
etc., taken in part, though not very largely, from a draft pre- 
pared by Calhoun. It was in the main written by McDuffie. 88 

The purpose of these papers was of course to explain and 
justify the action of the State. The South Carolina address 
asserted that " the idea of using force on an occasion of this 
kind is utterly at variance with the genius and spirit of the 

87 Houston's " Nullification," pp. 108, 109. Petigru also wrote to much 
the same effect, and said the Unionists did not even support a ticket for 
the Convention except in districts where they had the upper hand. Letters 
of October 29 and December 21, 1832, to Legare, ut supra. 

88 P. M. Butler wrote Hammond from the Convention Hall on Novem- 
ber 22, 1832, specifying the authors of the various papers as stated in 
the text here and below, except that he says generally that the address 
to the other States was written by McDuffie (Hammond Papers, in 
Library of Congress), but parts of Calhoun's draft ("Works," Vol. VI, 
pp. 193-209) are plainly to be found in it. They were doubtless adopted 
by McDuffie. See also Mr. Hunt's " Calhoun." pp. 154-156, and Jcrvey's 
"Hayne," p. 219. The "Address" is not to the "co-States," but to 
Massachusetts, etc., etc., by name. The term "co-States" was doubt- 
less used afterwards for brevity. Both "Addresses" are to be found 
in the " Proceedings of the Conventions of the People of South Caro- 
lina held in 1832, 1813 and 1852," Columbia, South Carolina, i860, pp. 53-77, 
and also in Cooper's " Statutes at Large," Vol. I, pp. 334~54- It has al- 
ready been said, (ante, p. 437) that perhaps this draft of Calhoun is one 
of those which R. B. Rhett wrote in 1854 as having been * suppressed, 
. . . greatly to his [Calhoun's] mortification and indignation." 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 449 

American people "; while that to the other States ran in part: 

Having formed this resolution, we will throw off this oppres- 
sion at every hazard [and in the event of a resort to military 
force, we] will, forthwith, provide for the organization of a new 
and separate Government. 

Perhaps more important than these threats and forebodings 
of trouble, was an offer of compromise (not contained in Cal- 
houn's draft) in the following words: 

But we are willing to make a large sacrifice to preserve the 
Union; and with a distinct declaration that it is a concession on 
our part, we will consent that the same rate of duty may be im- 
posed upon the protected articles that shall be imposed upon the 
unprotected, provided that no more revenue be raised than is 
necessary to meet the demands of the Government for constitu- 
tional purposes; and provided also that a duty, substantially uni- 
form be imposed upon all foreign imports. 89 

The great document of the Convention, however, was of 
course the Ordinance of Nullification, written by Harper. This 
now so strange monument of our past enacted that the Tariff 
Acts of May 19, 1828, and of July 14, 1832, 90 " are unau- 
thorized by the Constitution of the United States, and violate 
the true meaning thereof, and are null, void, and no law, nor 
binding upon this State, its officers or citizens." It was passed 
on November 24 by a vote of 136 to 26 and was to go into 
effect on February 1, 1833. After then directing that the Leg- 
islature should pass the laws necessary to carry the ordinance 
into effect, the convention adjourned to meet on the call of 
the President. 

The task left to the Legislature was not an easy one, but a 
very complete system was enacted. A replevin was allowed for 
goods held for payment of duties and the sheriff might dis- 
train on the personal property of the offender, in case any one 
should refuse to deliver under the replevin or the goods should 
be later seized from him. A habeas corpus was directed to 

89 " The Journals of the Conventions," etc., p. 76. 
90 The Act of 1828 was then in force, and that of 1832 was to go into 
effect on March 4, 1833. 



450 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

issue on behalf of any one arrested by a federal court in the 
matter, nor was a sale under a federal decree to vest title. 
Copies of court records were not to be issued, and penalties 
were placed on clerks of the courts violating this provision in 
any case where the authority of the ordinance was drawn in 
question. 

Heavy penalties were also imposed on such as should resist 
process under the act or should re-seize goods, which had 
been replevied, and on a jailer detaining any one in jail for 
disobeying the annulled law, or private persons so doing, or 
leasing or permitting to be used for such purpose any place, 
house, or building. An oath to obey the ordinance was re- 
quired to be taken by all officers, various militia laws were 
enacted, the purchase of ten thousand stand of arms and nec- 
essary accoutrements authorized, and the Governor empowered 
to call the men out in case the Government of the United States 
should try to enforce the nullified acts. A resolution in favor 
of a convention of the States was also passed as had been di- 
rected by the Nullifying Convention. 91 Calhoun was present 
at Columbia during at least part of this session. 92 

These steps of the Nullifiers did not by any means escape 
opposition. The Unionists denounced them, and the test-oath 
became a subject of litigation and was in the end adjudged by 
a divided court to be unconstitutional. 93 Meetings were, more- 
over, held at various times during the agitation to oppose the 
course of the majority. At one of these, which met in Charles- 
ton as early as June of 1832, the Unionists suggested the call- 
ing of a Southern Convention. 94 Another meeting in oppo- 
sition to Nullification had been held at Chester, South Caro- 

81 " Cooper's Statutes at Large," Vol. I, pp. 371-376. " Laws of South 
Carolina, 1832," pp. 15-20, 22-27, 28, 29, 42, 51, 52, 58, 65, 66. Calhoun's 
" Works," Vol. VI, p. 207. 

82 " Correspondence," p. 322. His resignation of the Vice-Presidency, 
on Decemher 28, is dated at Columbia. " The National Intelligencer " of 
January 7, 1833. 

83 State vs. Hunt, 2, Hill, p. 1, decided in 1834- Of the three members 
of the court, Johnson and O'Neall agreed in the judgment, for different 
reasons, while Harper dissented. 

8 * Niles's " Register," Vol. XLII, p. 300. So far as I know this was 
the first suggestion ever made of a Southern Convention. It is curious 
that the idea should have originated with the Unionists, of all people. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 451 

lina, probably in the preceding March. 95 It seems, too, that 
in December, 1832, Hamilton and Calhoun were hung in effigy 
at Spartanburg. 96 

The Unionists were once more in session in September, at 
Columbia, when the Legislature was about to meet and issue 
the call for the Nullification Convention. On this occasion, 
they again took up the idea of a Southern Convention, and 
resolved " with great unanimity " that, in case of the con- 
currence of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, 
Alabama, and Mississippi, they " recommend to the citizens 
of this state to meet in their several districts and elect dele- 
gates to attend a general meeting of the citizens of the said 
states in convention, to take into consideration the grievances 
under which we labor, and the means and measure of redress. 
; ' And they pledged themselves to abide by such measures as 
said convention should recommend." 97 

The address they issued emphasized once more their oppo- 
sition to the tariff, while of the remedy proposed by the ma- 
jority it said: "Regarded as a peaceful remedy, Nullifi- 
cation resolves itself into a mere law-suit, and may be shortly 
dismissed as a feeble, inefficient measure. . . . Regarded as 
a forcible interposition of the sovereign power of the State, 
the objects to it lie far deeper," in that it is utterly un- 
constitutional. 98 

Again, after the passage of the law calling the convention, 
the Unionists held a meeting in Columbia on October 25 and 
issued an address against the call and recommending their 

85 Niles's " Register," Vol. XLII, p. 92. 

90 Ibid., XLTII, p. 301, quoting the Raleigh "Register" of December 28. 
_ 97 Niles's " Register," Vol. XLIII, p. 66. The doings of this conven- 
tion were perhaps those which Calhoun referred to in a letter of Novem- 
ber 8, 1832, to a relative as " of an extraordinary character, indeed, and 
[they] certainly indicate a factious sperit, as well as a very selfish one. 
They have been well answered by our Committee." The proposal of a 
Southern Convention was evidently to some extent a move for position 
on the political chess-board. Petigru wrote Legare on October 29, 1832, 
" We had our Union Convention in September, and put forth our South- 
ern Convention prospectus, but all would not do. Nothing could 
supplant nullification but something that would go ahead of it." 
Allston's "Life," ut supra, in Charleston "Sunday News" of May 27, 
1900. 

98 Niles's "Register," Vol. XLIII, pp. 87-89. 



452 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

party to send delegates to the convention : " and finally after 
the passage of the Ordinance of Nullification they met in 
Columbia on December 10, according to adjournment. The 
number of delegates present was estimated at 150, 100 and reso- 
lutions were received from the people of Greenville, Spartan- 
burg, Pendleton, Chester, and apparently other districts. A 
long " solemn protest " against Nullification was issued, and 
Randell Hunt offered resolutions to the effect that they ac- 
knowledged no allegiance to any government but that of the 
United States, that the general committee be directed to in- 
quire " whether it is not expedient to give a military organiza- 
tion to the Union Party throughout the State," and whether it 
will be necessary to call in the assistance of the General Gov- 
ernment. 101 

These resolutions were referred with only one dissenting 
vote, but it seems that no report was made on them. At a 
later date Hunt said that they had been substantially approved 
" by the citizens of Greenville, Spartanburg and other portions 
of our own State," as well as outside the State. 102 

The Legislature of South Carolina had had one other ques- 
tion to meet at its session in the late fall of 1832. The time 
had then arrived when, if ever, a position must be taken as to 
the presidency. Little interest had been shown in it in the 
State, and Hamilton had written that " they would take no part 
in the presidential election." 103 Calhoun, too, wrote Cralle 

09 Niles's " Register," Vol. XLIII, p. 175. It has already been said that, 
in the actual election, little effort was, however, made by the Unionists. 

100 Petigru wrote : " We mustered very strong," Letter to Legare dated 
December 21, 1832: Allston's "Life." in " Sunday News" of May 27, 1900. 

101 Niles's "Register," Vol. XLIII, pp. 279, 291-93; "The National In- 
telligencer " of November 17 and 22, and December 25, 1832. The Union- 
ists seem not to have been united on the question of opposing by arms 
the course of the controlling party in the State. James S. Rhett said 
in a public speech in 1844 that, when nullification was about to be en- 
forced, he was sent by the Union party to Jackson on a secret mission 
and was directed to tell him that, " whilst we were anxious to do our 
duty as good citizens of the Union, no union man would commit treason 
against his State." Niles's " Register," Vol. LXVII, pp. 43. 44- 

102 Randell Hunt's Address of January 21 to the Union Party of South 
Carolina, Pamphlet in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The Ad- 
dress bears date January 21, but no year is given. It was evidently 
first printed in some newspaper and internal evidence shows that it was 

of 1833. 
108 Letter to Hammond of June 11, 1832, quoted ante pp. 429, 430. 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 453 

in May, — doubtless with a view to the course to be followed 
by Cralle's Richmond newspaper: 

. . . The question of the V. Pres T ought to be entered into by 
you just to the extent, and no farther, than may be necessary to 
strengthen the state rights doctrine in your State. . . . Let us 
place the Presidential question under our foot ; and make it the 
criterion of patriotism not to take office under the Gen 1 Gov 1 till 
the Constitution be restored, and the South liberated from her 
burdens. 104 

In South Carolina at that date, the Legislature always chose 
the Presidential electors, but it was manifestly not to be ex- 
pected of the State to cast her vote for Jackson, who was hotly 
denouncing her course and threatening co-ercion, nor was the 
natural alternative easier, for Clay typified the so-called Ameri- 
can System, which was anathema to them. The position they 
had taken left apparently no choice but that, which usually 
seems a lame and impotent conclusion, of throwing their vote 
away. Accordingly, resolutions were passed by the Legisla- 
ture on December 3, to the effect that it was inexpedient for 
South Carolina to vote for either one of the candidates for 
President or Vice-President and that therefore " in testimony 
of our high esteem and consideration for the patriotic de- 
votion of John Floyd of Virginia and Henry Lee of Massa- 
chusetts to the principles of State Rights, and the great cause 
of Free Trade, we will give to them the vote of this State 
for President and Vice-President." 105 

Congress came together in regular session on December 3, 
1832, at a time when Nullification had been enacted in South 
Carolina and most of the events above narrated had taken 
place. The whole country was in a condition of great excite- 
ment and anxiety, and the arrest of Calhoun was expected 
upon his arrival in Washington early in January of 1833. 
People all felt that we were face to face with a most serious 

10* " Correspondence," pp. 320, 321. The candidates of the leading par- 
ties for Vice-President were Van Buren and John Sergeant. 

105 The Charleston " Mercurv " of December 6. 1832. John Floyd, long 
a State Rights Democrat, was then Governor of Virginia. He had strongly 
criticized Jackson's Proclamation. Henry Lee of Massachusetts had writ- 
ten in support of free trade. 



454 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

emergency growing out of the tariff. Jackson, it has been seen, 
had advocated reductions in his more recent utterances and 
his message at the opening of this session again contained 
the same recommendation, in spite of the fact that the Act of 
1832 had been widely and authoritatively proclaimed to be our 
definitive Tariff. 

Indeed, the Message went much further, for, omitting all ref- 
erence to distribution, it recommended economy in expendi- 
tures and then added that the approaching extinction of the 
public debt 

. . . affords the means of further provision for all the objects 
of general welfare and public defence which the constitution 
authorizes, and presents the occasion for such further reduction 
in the revenue as may not be required for them. From the Re- 
port of the Secretary of the Treasury, it will be seen that after 
the present year, such a reduction may be made to a considerable 
extent. [Long and patient reflection had strengthened the opin- 
ions which the President had theretofore expressed to Congress 
on this subject and he then goes on that the soundest maxims of 
public policy and our principles recommend] a proper adaptation 
of the revenue to the expenditures, and they also require that the 
expenditure shall be limited to what, by an economical adminis- 
tration, shall be consistent with the simplicity of the Government 
and necessary to an efficient public service. ... I recommend 
that it [the legislative protection] be gradually diminished and 
that, as far as may be consistent with these objects [to counteract 
foreign regulations and secure a supply of articles essential to 
national independence and safety in time of war], the whole 
scheme of duties be reduced to the revenue standard as soon as a 
just regard to the faith of the government and to the preserva- 
tion of the large capital invested in establishments of domestic 
industry, will permit. 

This language was certainly highly conciliatory and presum- 
ably to no little extent intended by Jackson as a carrying out 
of his indications to the Unionists. It may probably also be 
accepted as proof that he was sincere in his desire for real re- 
ductions and far from satisfied with the Act of 1832. John 
Quincy Adams wrote 106 however, that the message threw away 

106 " Memoirs," Vol. VIII, p. 503- 



THE DRAMA OF NULLIFICATION 455 

all neutrality " and surrenders the whole Union to the nullifiers 
of the South and the land-robbers of the West." With these 
" land-robbers " we are not here concerned, but the historian 
may perhaps find a high patriotism in Jackson's course and will 
at least conclude that the carping diarist would not have shown 
nearly as firm a front under the appalling difficulties of the day 
as did Jackson. He certainly had not done so in the contest of 
his time with Georgia. 

A few days after the meeting of Congress, Jackson issued 
his famous Proclamation of December 10, 1832," 7 against the 
Nullifiers, which was in turn answered by Hayne, the new 
Governor of South Carolina, on December 20th, in pursuance 
of the request of the Legislature. 108 Hayne having been 
elected to the Governorship on December ioth, 109 had resigned 
the Senatorship, 110 and on the 12th of the same month, Cal- 
houn was elected to the U. S. Senate to fill the unexpired term 
of Hayne. He then in turn resigned the Vice-Presidency on 
December 28. 111 His election had been foreseen by at least one 
politician during the preceding summer, 112 and of course the 
exchange was made in pursuance of an arrangement among 

107 The proclamation was reviewed at great length by " A Virginian " 
(L. W. Tazewell), in thirteen numbers, originally printed in the "Nor- 
folk and Portsmouth Herald." The review was later published in pam- 
phlet form and contains 112 pages. A copy is preserved in the Library of 
the University of South Carolina. 

i° 8 "Laws of South Carolina." 1832, p. 37. 

109 Charleston " Mercury " of November 30, and December 13, 1832. 
He was elected by the Legislature by 123 votes to 26 blank. 

110 Mr. Hunt ("Life of Calhoun," pp. 159, 160) writes that Hayne by 
no means wanted to give up the senatorship. See also Jervey's " Hayne," 
p. 322. 

i« " Life of Calhoun," by Gaillard Hunt, pp. 159, 160. The exact form 
of the resignation is given by Mr. Hunt. It was addressed to the Sec- 
retary of State, and was sent by that officer on January 4, 1833, with a 
letter of his own, to the President of the Senate, in pursuance of the 
directions of Jackson. Nothing further was then done. Hugh L. White 
had already on the opening day of the session (December 3rd) been 
elected President Pro tern., "the Vice-President of the United States 
being absent," and he remained in the office until March 4, 1833. Journal 
of the Senate; and see "The National Intelligencer" for January 7, 1833. 

112 Duff Green wrote to Cralle on July 28: "Mr. Calhoun will come 
into the Senate and be at the head of that party, who_ rallies for the 
Constitution and Liberty. Of this, however, say ^ nothing. I ( see this 
must be the result. His master spirit will place him there." " Calhoun 
as seen by his Friends," in " Publications of Southern History Associa- 
tion," Vol. VII, pp. 276, 277. 



456 LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN 

the leaders. It may be safely surmised that the object in view 
was to have Calhoun present the South Carolina views on the 
floor of the Senate. He was now known far and wide as their 
great defender. 



END OF VOL. I 



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